Kept thinking about builds and writing them down for my own usage, but figured I'd share them.
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- Slow and chunky, inaccurate
- Gets doubled on all the time
+ Above average defenses, comfortable getting into the thick of things and soaking up hits to reduce total healing required for your team as a whole
+ Heals
+ Consolidates roles
+ Healing on your turn = +accuracy, enabling counter-attacks despite low DEX

This class is underwhelming in general, and it's just "okay" for most people. However, there's one cleric who makes an amazing one.

Best: Vesta (best tank in game) > Lincoln (not as tanky but better dmg and healing)

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- No visual indicator to tell if a unit has the healing over time buff or not, making it confusing to keep track of
- Low FOR means scared of mages (can use magic resistance aspect to compensate)
+ Pairs well with bruisers and high mobility units like Dragoon/Dragon Knight
- Awful when paired with glass cannons or units that need sudden emergency heals
- Underwhelming in general
- Does terrible in cramped confines or for moving forward as a solid unit
+ If you can tag enough units, provides tons of healing over multiple turns. Encourages moving quickly from one engagement to the next (again, likes a high mobility cavalry squad)
~ If you have units tagged, but don't need to heal this turn, it might still be smart to do it anyway if you have nothing else better to do because it's free exp. Guardian has this problem of overhealing which causes them to not heal as often, and thus, not be gaining exp that other healers do, resulting in them falling behind and being underleveled compared to their teammates, which eventually makes them weak and die easily. Thus, trying to squeeze out every bit of free exp becomes a priority. Likewise, if you can safely attack a target, even if it "accomplishes nothing", it's still smart to do so just for the free exp. For example, a dodgy rogue. You can't hit them cause they're too dodgy, but they can't hurt you because your DEF is so high. Accomplished nothing, but you got exp. THEN you finish it off with one of your other units. Try to do stuff like this often to ensure your healer doesn't become underleveled. It's tedius, but very important for this class.

Worst healer in my opinion. It really likes a particular playstyle and unless you make a squad for that specific purpose, it generally feels pretty bad compared to alternatives. It can work and be awesome, but only in specific circumstances. General recommendation: Use anything BUT this class.
Best: Vesta (very high DEF & FOR makes her low stress and just works, can use Ellis +50% healing) / Lincoln (slightly stronger heals by default, EXTREMELY high DEF and low FOR meaning magical will shred him, highly recommend Arcane & Holy resistance aspects, swap them based on situation). Between the two, I highly recommend Vesta as she's just more standard, Lincoln is a little more hassle but potentially stronger overall.

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+ Best dedicated healer
+ 3 healing range is super nice
- Dmg a bit lacking, but useful to take out Plate
~ Best to use Balance weapon (speed & dodge) and either not upgrade it to funnel those resources to other characters (since you'll only be healing anyway) or upgrade it with your free tokens eventually to increase true power which becomes +dodge due to both passives (still recommend Balance weapon for the overall power/weight ratio, it's still the best for optimized dmg & dodge). This is more impactful once you reach Prophet because then you have 2 stacks of the passive rather than just 1.

Best: Maren (self sustain solo healer) > Vesta (high defenses, low stress, slightly lower healing) > Samara (+movement is very nice, highest dodge)

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+ Accuracy, crit, speed, dodge, doubles often and doesn't get doubled on
- Defensive stats are low
+ Lifesteal makes up for that, is more survivable than you'd expect
+ Can still heal allies well

Makes a very aggressive offense focused healer who wants to attack first and heal after. Because they hit so hard, they'll often one-shot stuff, reducing enemies, which reduces required healing afterwards. If enemies attack them, they'll just counter-attack which lifesteals. This isn't necessarily enough to keep them alive by itself though, so you do want to be slightly careful, but is fairly comfortable trading blows. Really good class overall.
Tip: If there's only a couple bad guys remaining and you CAN kill them with your other squadmates, do that instead so your Acolyte can spend that turn healing.

Best: Faust (high dmg, dodgy, doubles) > Samara (well rounded) > Maren (decent overall stats, fast & dodgy).

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I have them sorted from top to bottom (roughly) in my overall recommendations. Pick 2 or 3 of those and look at their individual character sections for their specific builds. Generally don't recommend Guardian>Paladin, it's awesome on paper, in practice, it's awkward if not downright bad unless you do some very specific things. Only recommend after you've had some experience with the game.

My personal favorites for a run are:
- Faust Acolyte tank
- Maren Priest self sustain
- Samara Acolyte well-rounded hybrid
But I'm a sucker for healers. Since Holy wrecks Rune/Plate, I like pairing them with some Projectile for Chain/Leather.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Maren
Passive Skill:

Fast, decent for dodging and doubling. Good HP and physical defense, but her accuracy, crit and magical defense are terrible. This means she's actually pretty good at attacking into other plate wearers, especially tanks, but she's scared of magic users like mages, elemental adepts or acolytes. Hopefully, she dodges most attacks, but if she doesn't, her amazing passive will heal her back as her best use is healing allies each turn, which also heals herself. This allows you to be pretty aggressive with her positioning, as long as there's not multiple mages around, she can take a few hits to spread out the damage of the team and then heal it right back. One caveat though: she has to have an available target that needs healing in order to heal them, so if she's the only one hurt, it leaves her in a sticky situation. Most of the time though, this allows her to be the solo healer for a squad very effectively without too much worry.
Like all the starting heroes, her distribution of stats actually make her able to effectively go into any of the classes, if you know how to build them right.

Solid support character. Unless you're running multiple healers in each group (many missions require you to split up), because Maren heals herself, she doesn't require another healer to follow her around, and because of her decent MAG gains, she hits hard enough to keep herself topped off. In some ways, this consolidates roles because it frees up a potential slot for your team. She has medium defensive stats, which allows her to take a hit or two, spreading out the incoming team damage that she'll heal back from anyway. However, other characters getting hit could potentially have higher counter-attack damage, so keep that in mind. Regardless, she's a very straight-forward low stress option.
Balance weapon is best and I'd recommend having it be low-priority, funneling power towards other characters first. Upgrading it becomes important once she reaches Prophet passives.
This is Maren's overall best build and is a good lazy "just works" kind of playstyle that you don't have to think about.

Only a bit worse than Samara in the same role. She has higher defenses but slightly lower Dexterity. Her speed, dodge and crit will all become fairly solid. Her passive may seem a little useless here, but one nice thing about her is that Acolytes often get in a weird position where they're at half health and have to attack to heal, but might not have great targets to do so on, while Maren doesn't have to worry about that. Being tankier and healing herself when she heals others, she can comfortably do either one and always be self sufficient. Even if you mostly use her for healing on this class, she'll be content and work great, especially since anything that attacks her will be counter-attacked, which also heals her. It may seem like a silly class choice for her, but she'll do well, especially if you already have a Priest or two on your team.
The main thing you're sacrificing here by going Acolyte instead of Priest is the healing range, but gaining lifesteal on counters.

Ellis' Light is such a strong combo for this build. Inquisitor gets smaller MAG gains (reduces healing), so Ellis will bring this back up to good levels, which also increases her self healing. It goes much further with Maren than other healers, especially since Inquistior/Guardian don't heal with as much "Mmph". This allows her to frontline, soaking up hits, counter-attacking and healing on her turn to keep herself and her allies topped off. This is overall the role "she was made for" in my opinion, though, lacking that Priest range is very noticeable, and how capable she is of actually getting adjacent to someone to heal them will depend on your strategy and deployment, so it makes healing a lot more situationally awkward. She's best suited to healing tanks right beside her. If you're moving forward as a squad with front and back-lines, she'll do fantastic in this role. She has low Fortitude by default though, so she's a smidge scared of magic users (though the stat gains on this class will flesh that out over time).

Additionally, you can have more aspects in your inventory, and you can keep some elemental resistance aspects (I'd recommend Holy & Arcane especially since she's plate). If you're scared of some casters, you can swap out Ellis for one of them temporarily, since she's a magnet for those two elements.
Overall, I think Vesta definitely makes a better Inquisitor. Maren does a fine job here, but she needs to heal constantly. That feels better on Priest because she's more flexible about who and where she can do so. So while I do think Inquisitor Maren is just as powerful as her Priest build, this one gets a 6/10 rating from me simply for the awkward factor.

Mobile healer with healing over time, which is more total healing, but it's over 3 turns instead. However, Maren only self heals on the initial cast and not the subsequent ticks of healing on each target which reduces her self sustain by quite a bit compared to her other builds.

Her defenses are overall higher with this build as opposed to say Priest however, so this sort of works out... Lincoln and Vesta get doubled all the time cause they're so slow. Maren on the hand is dodgier and also faster, so she doesn't get doubled. Takes more damage per hit, but less total hits taken. She'll also have low FOR, so wear Yl'mar for most engagements (since there's a lot of Arcane which she will magnet), or Izn if your fighting a group of Holy. But if mostly physical remain, then Ellis is definitely better. This allows her to be pretty tanky but also self sufficient, which other Guardians can't do. If you prioritize taking out magical first, she'll be quite tanky versus remaining physical and can equip Ellis early to top herself off.

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Overall sentiment:
Passive is very strong, lots of self-sustain, decently tanky. Don't have to worry about her as much as other healers, but tends to lean hard support rather than dmg. I highly recommend you use a build that lets her take a little bit of damage. This allows you to spread out incoming damage of your team and she'll heal herself back up automatically, which reduces the total amount of healing you need to do. Maren is a low-stress low-investment healer, which allows you to funnel more valuable aspects and gold to other characters who can snowball into monsters. As a support? I think she's a great choice for a solo healer in a squad.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Lincoln
Passive Skill:

Magical defenses and speed are so bad that he'll get doubled all the time, however his absurdly high HP and physical defenses mean that physical at least will do practically 0 damage to him. Because of his passive, his Magic is actually a little higher than it seems. You can either have him go into a physical class to boost his strength (and thus his Magic) to improve his healing, or you can go for a magical class and treat his lower STR as a neat little bonus.
At first glance, he probably feels very underwhelming compared to other healers. But Lincoln isn't meant to be a jack-of-all-trades, nor is it good to evaluate him in a vacuum. He has a very specific role and he dominates it. He's a team player who likes a particular type of playstyle and works very well within that role.

Promotions:

Makes his stats more well-rounded. Not quite as tanky as Vesta, but hits harder and heals more. She doesn't really need Jahno, but it helps a lot here. Focus weapon allows him to counter-attack enemies better. Once he's had some stat growth here, you can make his second class something else, but I still think staying with Crusader is best in this case.
Vesta makes an overall superior Inquisitor>Crusader.

The Guardian tree was practically made for him. It doubles down on DEF and STR (which increases his healing). This is a powerful combo, however, he has some major cons in the form of horrendous SPD & FOR, meaning he'll be doubled on and magical will shred him. It's tempting to use Ellis Light (+50% healing), which is really good for the healing-over-time, but in practice, for him? It's just too suicidal.

For magic enemies in the campaign, there's far more Arcane than anything else, so wear Yl'mar most of the time, and only swap to Izn if you're going into a group of Holy. As long as you have other armor type units in your team (Leather, Chain, Rune) they should magnet the Fire and Storm, so Lincoln shouldn't have to worry about that.

He much prefers everyone spreading out so his mobility can reach them, but also encourages enemies to spread out the damage, which allows his smaller instances of repeated healing to go further. Likewise, he doesn't like pairing with glass cannons, units that need emergency healing are rough for him. Instead, he likes units that are at least a little defensible or super dodgy, reducing the total number of units he has to worry about. Lastly, he really likes pairing with an accurate Acolyte (Plate & Rune coverage) who focuses hard offense (and kills dodgy stuff that Lincoln can't) and can take care of emergency heals since he's just not good at that (but also throw a heal his way occasionally). Anyway, if you use Lincoln as primary healer (so Acolyte can be mostly offense) and can have a constant flow of applying healing over time, it can make an unstoppable wave of death.

In general, I'd recommend you treat him as a mobile healer, rather than a stationary tank. He should be healing every turn whenever possible. However, he has a tendency to overheal, which results in not being able to cast every turn and thus he falls behind in exp compared to his allies. As such, when you have just a few units left, it's smart to let him attack rogues or archers, something physical that can't hurt him because of his high DEF. He'll probably miss, but he'll get free exp, then someone else can finish them off. Try to do this to keep him from slowly bleeding exp.

Elemental resistance aspect + spreading squad out + no glass cannons + prioritizing taking out magical enemies = Amazing healer. One of the tankiest units in the game who can be very aggressive with positioning and also hit slow chunky Plate very hard.

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Overall sentiment:
He REALLY wants to be a Guardian, but it's just such an awkward playstyle in practice because of his lopsided nature. So, a Jahno Inquisitor might be more worthwhile, or just benching him in favor of other units. Of the various clerics, he's my least favorite as he's kind of underwhelming in general. He has potential to be very strong though, just to be clear. He's just kind of awkward is all, so if you can deal with that, he can be fantastic.

Also, note that speedrunning on Deity difficulty is a totally different animal (dodge is severely nerfed, so it favors tanky slow units), and people often make Lincoln an Acolyte, then feed ALL their gold into him to make him solo the entire game through counter-attacks and lifestealing. I'm not covering such tactics in this guide, as this is instead directed at the average player doing a normal playthrough of the game, and most people are probably looking to use a full regimen of units. If you want speedrunning tips, please look elsewhere. ^_^

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Samara
Passive Skill:

One of the best supports in the game. If you build her right.
Brutal honesty...? Her default stat allocation is just... awful... She's a glass cannon who can POTENTIALLY hit pretty hard, but has a little bit of everything, meaning she's not particularly good at anything either. She's okay in: damage, crit, dodge, accuracy, mastery... meanwhile she has just AWFUL defensive stats and speed, meaning enemies will hit hard and possibly even double on her (though she does have some hefty dodge, so it sorta works out).
Her absolutely insane luck feels out of place and bewildering, but once you know how to take advantage of it, it turns her into a fantastic unit.

Promotions:

With Ancara, she gets a massive boost to advanced stats, becoming a very solid dps/healer/dodge hybrid.
- Dodgy, can facetank most foes
- "Good" dmg, but not "great"
- Doubles often
- Lifesteal
- Good accuracy
- Decent heals
- Movement
This makes her a well-rounded support that can flexibly fit multiple roles simultaneously and picks up the slack wherever it's needed. She never quite gets to the point where you say "That is so overpowered!" But she's just an above average beast who gets stuff done. Acolyte gets huge SPD & LCK gains, both of which benefit her greatly. Speed because she needs it, and LCK because it all goes straight to Ancara for a massive power spike. This is her best build by far and really takes full advantage of everything she has to offer. Each turn, she can freely choose to heal, attack, or even wall to protect someone else. She might not do any of those roles as good as some other characters, but she'll be "good enough" at all of them, which most units can't do. Start your turn using your other units, then end your turn with her to take care of whatever's remaining that you need and she'll pick up the slack. Very flexible unit for any squad.

For her final form, Prophet is tempting for the healing range, however, Phantom still maintains those SPD & LCK gains which is good for the reasons I already listed. Either will work though, so pick what makes sense for your team at that point.
I did try Quintare's Quill (swaps LCK & MST) but it wasn't very good (the MST gains on Acolyte are pretty high so it doesn't actually accomplish anything). Ancara is just so much better.

Samara has decent DEX and very high LCK, which means she's pretty dodgy. Upgrade her weapon to increase her Power which will also give her dodge (Priest passives). Her downsides are that she has high STR (worthless) and low DEF & SPD. Her best overall aspect is Ancara which increases her dodge and power (and more power means even more dodge because of Priest passives, so she's double-dipping). Otherwise, Innileth which boosts her low DEF (her FOR is actually decent as Priest). Both of these options increase her survivability quite a bit. Zeltar helps, but it's better on units that have an even BIGGER disparaging gap between STR and SPD so that it goes much further.

Samara's movement passive is actually pretty sweet because Priests have very low movement. It might not seem like much, but having a healer who can go where you need, when you need, is actually a big deal, and means you're not having turns wasted when she could have been healing.
This gets my vote for her second best build.

Makes a well rounded Inquisitor with decent: speed, dodge, defenses, accuracy, dmg. She hits harder than most Inquisitors and more often (accuracy + doubling), so this is leaning more towards an offense counter-attack build. When you end your turn healing, Inquisitor gets double accuracy for enemy phase, and she already started out with pretty good accuracy. This means she's leaning towards primary healer who counter-attacks any melee with fairly solid accuracy for this normally inaccurate class. Also, Inquisitor have terrible movement, so her passive feels good here.

The end result of all of this is above average accuracy, damage and dodge for this class, but only average overall HP, defenses and speed. More importantly, the stat gains on this class aren't particularly great for her. Overall, she'll be a fantastic unit to soak up enemy Plate (Crushing) because most of them don't have enough accuracy to overcome her levels of dodge, but accurate Arcane and Holy units will shred her pretty good, which can suddenly be scary. As long as you prioritize taking those out, she'll make a good primary healer who isn't afraid to have aggressive positioning and counter-attack stuff with decent accuracy to soften them up for your team. Between this and Acolyte, Inquisitor definitely feels weaker, her other build feels much better to use.

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Worth stat boosters? Maybe
I think other units are generally better to invest than her. However, giving her a little nudge can help ramp her from "good" to "great" in one of her roles. Still feels a smidge copium to me in this case because she's well-rounded and constantly alternates between two roles, so you'd only be getting the benefit of your investment half the time.
Priest/Guardian: Magic (healing)
Acolyte/Inquisitor: Luck (to scale with Ancara, most efficient), however, Dexterity as Acolyte gives her enough accuracy to guarantee hit dodgy foes and also increases her dodge.

Overall sentiment:
Her Acolyte and Priest builds are fantastic. The others are "okay". She's a real solid unit that's quickly become one of my favorites. So versatile. It's funny cause I used to hate her, her default stats are kind of awful and she feels underwhelming. Since discovering her potential though, my mind is blown. She is very strong! The one trap with her is you might be tempted to try and make a crit unit out of her, which I think is very bad on her because her stats are too spread thin for it to work out well. If you want a crit unit, there's much better options.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Vesta
Passive Skill:

Her stats SCREAM to make her an Inquisitor, and you absolutely should!
Slow, inaccurate, can't crit, gets doubled against all the time. But she has crazy high physical AND magic defenses! Most units don't have that, which makes her very versatile and safe. She becomes a sponge for certain damage types which normally plate would suffer against, but even with the +30% damage modifier, they can't scratch her.

Promotions:

Best tank in game. Gets hit a lot, soaks up Crushing/Arcane enemies and often only takes 1 or 0 dmg from each hit. She will need healing every once in awhile, but otherwise can hold the line for a VERY long time or even run ahead and distract for a while on her own. Her damage is okay (which is actually shocking considering how tanky she is). Her heals hit fairly hard, and ideally you're using her as your primary healer. Inquisitor gets increased accuracy on enemy phase if you ended your turn with healing. This means that when enemies hit her, her counter-attacks are much more likely to connect. Focus weapon can help with this even more.
She pairs well with units that are hybrid tank/dps (like a damage Thae'lanel Reverie/Blaze), they can take a couple hits, but will require a healer every turn or other turn. Well, paired with her, that's totally fine. The end result is: your overall team damage goes way up.

Low stress healer who has crazy defenses. Because she passively is so survivable, we can be more aggressive in our playstyle as well as aspect choice compared to other healers. I think Ellis is far better on Guardians/Inquisitors/Maren. Since Priest has lower defensive stat gains, if you want to improve her defenses, the best option here is actually Zeltar which makes her no longer be doubled on, effectively halving the damage she takes. Yes, she'll need healing eventually, but she takes so much less damage than other characters so it's actually a net win. You can be very aggressive with her placement and be totally safe. The stat gains on this class will give her SPD and drain her STR over time though, so Zeltar will slowly become less effective. Linhera is an alternative, but not as good as it might seem at first glance.
Otherwise, you can also use various support aspects that help her allies. As a Priest, she's very flexible and can use aspects that others aren't fighting over, making her a great low-investment support.

Healing over time is pretty sweet, but each burst of healing is lower and can feel underwhelming. Ellis' Light makes this much better. Both Zeltar & Linhera can improve her survivability so she can focus on healing, though, Vesta is already one of the toughest units in the game (but Guardian does lower her magic resistance, which would be why you'd consider this option).
Personally, I think this build makes her one of the be best elemental resistance aspect users in the game. Yeah, her healing would be a less than with Ellis, but she can just run around without worry. Just equip whichever aspect is most appropriate (Arcane>Holy since she's Plate, followed by others). I think this is great since most units don't care about those aspects, freeing up more valuable ones for other people.

The other good Crusader is Lincoln, who has better healing and lopsided defenses while staying with a particular group of units that compliment him, meanwhile Vesta doesn't have to worry about damage types or any of that other stuff. This means she's more flexible about where she goes, she doesn't really care what's going on, she's just going to storm right in and do her thing, but not to the same extreme heights that he would be able to achieve. Her Crusader/Paladin playstyle is about being an aggressive cavalry healer who tags people with healing over time and keeps running back and forth between multiple groups. This pairs especially well with units that don't want to be in clustered groups, like other cavalry units, Duelist/Gladiators, or Maeve in general.
Maren has a little self-sustain in this role, but Vesta is way more survivable, which pairs well with the Guardian's whole "I'm off on a field trip away from other healers" playstyle, which also might not be able to heal every turn (so Maren wouldn't be getting the healing she needs). I particularly like this paired with an Acolyte, since they can focus on offense and throw a heal her way sometimes, leaving Vesta to be primary healer who also doesn't care if stuff attacks her, which lowers overall team damage taken.

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Overall sentiment:
Fantastic tank/healer hybrid that consolidates roles. Her damage is not her focus, but it's non-negligible. Her heals hit fairly hard too. Not fantastic, but not terrible either. You can be pretty aggressive with her if needed as well, moving your defensive line forward. She gets all up in her foes' business and they can't do anything about it. Such a great character.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Faust
Passive Skill:

Glass cannon who leans very hard towards offense. His bad stats are VERY bad, which is kind of a good thing because it means those numbers are allocated in his strengths instead.

Promotions:
Very fast, doubles, very accurate, medium dodge. Low defensive stats though, but hits so hard that he usually lifesteals it all back right away. He's an all offense glass cannon who's more survivable than you'd expect. He's real solid all by himself, but he has one build that's incredibly powerful...

Personal DEX + Acolyte/Phantom DEX + Focus weapon + Kitara aspect (+ optional DEX items) = retaliation dodge tank. This gives him unnecessary levels of accuracy, then swaps it with his decent dodge, resulting in "average" accuracy and converts him into the dodgiest unit in the game (competing with Ancara Brooke). Only the most accurate foes can even hope to hit him, and as a majority of stuff misses, he'll just lifesteal off of multiple targets, which results in him being invincible. You can even send him forward by himself and he'll single-handedly soften up an entire enemy squad if not kill them outright. You can use him as a solo roamer to kill whatever you want, OR as a shield who frontlines by ending his turn healing an ally and walling in front of/beside them. With his (now) medium accuracy, he's able to hit ~80% of stuff, which is a majority of foes he'll face anyway. Because he hits so hard, he'll often one-shot stuff, making him the highest dmg tank in the game. Remember, he has 1-2 range, meaning he counters on ranged units as well. That alone is AMAZING! Very much feels like Liberty Battlemage/Aegis, except better accuracy and dodgy instead (and can heal). He doesn't have as much Mastery as she does, but he's faster, so he doubles. Anyway, this makes him very comfortable either being an invincible low-stress primary healer/tank OR a very aggressive offense unit who hunts down whatever he likes. The cherry on top: he provides an aura increasing his allies crit rate when he stands with them, increasing his team damage too.

So do that most of the time. Once enemies are thinned down, swap his aspect to return his dodge/accuracy to normal levels, making him a hard-counter to dodgy stuff. I'd recommend Innileth because it allows us to utilize his normally useless STR for something he needs. This is especially true if you prioritize taking out casters (since Faust often one-shots them), in particular dodgy Rune (Holy = good against Magician/Illusionist, Priest, Acolyte/Phantom). Remaining physical will attack him, but do reduced dmg due to Innileth boosting his DEF, then he just counter-attacks and lifesteals on them anyway, possibly one-shotting them. Once that engagement is done, swap him back to Kitara to go back into dodge-mode to prepare for next engagement.

This build makes him a flexible powerhouse who can attack, heal, tank, roam. Very strong. Swapping aspects is kind of a pain, but this is very low-stress and makes him one of the most versatile units ever. Because we've reduced the dmg he receives, his self-sustain is now enough to be solo healer in a squad, freeing up other slots, similar to how Maren can be a solo healer, but Faust ALSO does crazy dmg and can tank. Thus, he has all her benefits, but none of the downsides. I think their value is comparable normally, but this build tips it over the edge and makes him far better than her. I really can't overstate how overpowered this build is.

By the way, Priest/Prophet (tempting for the healing range) is bad for this build (moves too many stats to DEF/FOR/LCK), we need the SPD/DEX Acolyte tree offers. Additionally, we want him to be a RUNE tank quite specifically! (Prophet is Leather, we want him to be Phantom to stay Rune instead). Makes him magnet different attack types compared to other tanks, which is a huge advantage! Either protects your other Rune OR if he's the only Rune in your squad, it magnets ALL of that stuff to him so he counter-attacks it to death. Keeping him Rune is one of those "meta decisions" that you might not realize at first glance, but it makes everything else about his build even more amazing in a team scenario. This reduces team damage taken by quite a bit, but ALSO provides SO MUCH counter-attack dmg compared to alternatives! This results in less healing needed, higher damage provided, and he's flexible in multiple roles. This is his best build by far and provides far more team value than you'd expect.

By the way, we get Kitara 1 mission after acquiring Faust. ^_^

Decent levels of healing and provides a nice buff to nearby allies. Additionally, he can still zap enemies with Holy damage, though not as good as an Acolyte. But even though his personal damage will be a little lower, the buff he provides to allies will increase their damage and this class encourages him hugging their backsides (as opposed to other builds where he may not be with the group). He has high HP but very low defensive stats, so if he gets targeted, he's not going to hold out as well as alternative healers for this role.

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Overall sentiment:
He makes a great Acolyte in general, but using Kitara/Innileth swap build, he's AMAZING! He's a very solid unit that has impressed me and requires very little maintenance. I also find it shocking just how survivable he is considering his defensive stats are GARBAGE, but he somehow makes it work. Which means, all those stats are moved over to offense instead. He's great at counter-attacking, which is funny cause most clerics are bad at it. I'd highly recommend against going the Priest route as his main build is so much better.

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+ STR, DEX, MAS, LCK
+ Hard hitting, scales well with crit and Dexterity in particular
+ Likes being with friendly units
- Tends to be squishy, so generally wants to be behind a defensive line
+ Once it becomes a Sniper, the additional range is extremely OP
~ Really likes units who start with a ton of DEX already

Solid, rather standard ranged unit. Tends to be kind of glass-cannon'ish.
Just so you know, this is the physical version, while the magical version of this same class is the Adept Surge/Thunderlord with Storm (magic, but same type coverage of Chain/Leather). The main difference between the two is that Archer is more accurate and S/TL gets better bonuses for crit and is heavily crit dependent. They're very similar. In general though, I think Archer is a way better class, though Chain can be situationally pretty sweet.

Best: Maeve (assassin, hard counter to dodgy rogues who becomes invulnerable herself) > Garrick (high crit glass cannon who stays behind defensive lines and has generalized damage) / Caius (high accuracy generalist who's not as squishy as some of the alternatives and doubles often) / Rose (high accuracy rogue-killer, very low defenses though) > Sophia (crit and dodge-based anti-magic archer who's scared of physical and enemy archers in particular)

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+ HP, STR, LCK
~ Wants to solo against enemies
- If more than one enemy comes to play, half the passives disappear
- Heavily reliant on crits and RNG
- Feels underwhelming overall, there's other solo roamers that feel better

Too RNG based in my opinion. It's either great or it's terrible, all the time. That lack of reliability makes it feel bad. Generally speaking though, this class just feels lackluster and it's a pain to level it to get the stat growths it wants anyway. Overall, it's better to turn your rangers into Archers in my opinion.
I think Barbarian>Berserker or Duelist>Gladiator are better alternatives if you want a class like this.

Best for this (bad class overall though): Sophia (has the crit chance it wants) > Caius (accuracy + defenses, horrible crit chance though)
Garrick seems like he'd be a good choice, but he's too flimsy.

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+ STR, DEX, SPD
+ Very dodgy
+ Really wants to be fast to double on foes for juicy extra damage
+ Blade Dancer has amazing synergy with Mano's Fury (+50% power, hit rate always 50%) because if you can get below 40% HP, you get 100% hit chance (kinda a hassle though, have to do it every mission and hope you don't fall below that)
- Slashing has coverage that a lot of good units already have, so you can get too much of it easily in your squad
+ Has decent accuracy and tends to magnet dodgy rogues, which they have a high chance of being able to counter-attack and kill
+ Good mage-killer

Both of the best units for this really want to roam, so they're not going to stick with your squad. This means they can't sit still to dodge tank for you. But if you move forward as a unit with them, you can sorta make it work. Generally speaking though, they pair better with other units who also like to roam or aren't as dependent on positioning. This means they don't do well with Defender, Magician, Corvan, etc.
Solid class overall that does good damage. As long as you don't have too much Slashing or Leather on your team, then this can make a decent addition. I personally find this a problem if I want to have some Rogues because they usually end up being Leather as well, and there are other roaming options that aren't Leather to choose from.

Best: Caius (Good accuracy, speed, doubling, dodge with right build) / Maeve (if you can give her enough damage, she kills good match-ups and becomes crazy dodgy)

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+ HP, DEF, FOR
+ Destroys anything with high MAG, especially mages and clerics.
- Lower damage on average.
+ High defenses means trading blows is fine.

The stats become a little well-rounded with this class, which can be a good and bad thing. It also makes it pretty decent versus Chain, Leather and Rune, giving it a lot of coverage. If you don't have anything good to do that turn, you can always buff an allied unit with Haste to transfer some of that defensive power over to them so they can safely engage as well, but it will only work offensively as Haste will wear off once their turn is done. Still though, this can provide some extra cushion if you don't plan to use your WH/GK for that turn.
Decent overall class, though I'd only recommend 1 of them if you want to do this.

Best: Sophia (by far, she was made for this) > Caius (great overall stats, high defenses)

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I highly recommend trying to have half your squad be melee and the other half be ranged. Rangers make some of the best ranged units (who'd've thought?), and Archers (Projectile) is great type coverage, in particular because Archers tend to have high DEX (accuracy) and Projectile is good versus Leather, making them a perfect fit to be dodgy rogue killers.
If you're willing to invest a bit, Maeve is such a hard rogue counter that's super safe and doesn't require any hassle.
Garrick is really generic archer for most match-ups, but not great against dodgy stuff.
Caius really wants to be an invincible Strider powerhouse, but there are other dodgy units that do this same role too, so if you have too much Slashing coverage on your team, Alexa Barbarian, Bianca Windrunner might be solid alternatives too.
Sophia is a hard magic counter.
Rose is a smidge funky, but she's a hard rogue counter too (though appears very late in the campaign).

General recommendation: Maeve Archer/Strider, Caius Strider/Archer, Garrick Archer or Rose Archer (personally prefer Rose).

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Garrick
Passive Skill:

Powerhouse. High raw physical damage with great crit potential. Below average survivability, though, that can be shored up depending on class choice. Because his stats are fairly generalized, you can put him down any skill tree, but I personally think he only has one good class, the rest are just too flimsy. Regardless, you really want to build him with crit no matter which path you take him down. This is a little sad considering he has middling Dexterity (accuracy) and Luck (crit chance) as opposed to those being a little more emphasized. This does work out however because you can just throw a crit Aspect on him to make that happen without much effort.

Promotions:

Garrick's passive really wants a crit build, but he also has low crit rate and medium accuracy, which is a problem. He wants many things, but we really need to pick just one to get the best use out of him. You could ignore his passive and go for raw dmg or accuracy instead, but it's underwhelming, so it's still best to go hard crit in my experience.

One of the big things to realize about Garrick Archer though: Because his accuracy isn't great, he's actually not good versus most Leather/Chain. Instead, he's better at attacking low/medium dodge units, like high HP sponges because his meaty crits hit so hard that they might just one-shot them. Also, because his stat distribution isn't very "rock-paper-scissors" and is generalized instead, he doesn't really care about correct typing very much. His role on your team is to hit... whatever he wants. As long as it's not dodgy. He's your "general purpose" ranged unit. If you're wanting him as a rogue-killer, don't. He's terrible at that.

One note about Archer: It gets +7.5% crit when next to an ally. This means you want to either:
- Keep him behind a frontline, OR
- Attack with a melee, then either attack over their shoulder OR place him NEXT to them, diagonal to target

This is how you get the crit bonus either defensively or offensively. More important on Garrick than other archers because his crit rate is so low, so it's more impactful. As such, he REALLY wants to stick close to his squad. Also, he LOVES Illusionist (+40% accuracy aura).

I've heard that he makes a mean Drifter, but he's always been incredibly underwhelming for me. The thing is, Garrick does increased damage when he crits, but his crit chance is very low. Otherwise, he's a glass cannon. This class is dependent on crits, which is even more so true with his glass cannon nature. He's also very slow, so enemies double on him, meaning trading blows with enemies is awful and he's on death's door the whole time, which requires one or even two healers (heal him at the start of your turn, heal him again after he attacks so he doesn't die on enemy phase). It just feels bad. Altum sounds good on paper, but it wasn't nearly enough dodge to make much difference because he had so little to start with.
Anyway, I hear people say he makes a good Drifter, but Sophia was so much better in this role. Surprised me, since I considered Garrick to be the "king of crit".
Malice wasn't great either because Drifter moves a bunch of his stat growth over to defensive stats, which are then halved, which sort of exacerbates the whole glass cannon problem he's experiencing. The end result is: Either it's fine, or it's awful and he needs an emergency medic, or even two. The RNG factor of it all just made it unreliable.

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Worth stat boosters?: No
Garrick excels at HUGE chunky hits with medium accuracy and medium speed. He wants: LCK (crit), SPD (to double), DEX (accuracy)
The problem is, he needs so much of all of those that it's not going to make much difference. Other units are far more economical investment-wise. He's just too generalized and spread thin.

Overall sentiment:
Generic archer. High damage overall, but very squishy and will die easily. Other rangers have more extreme pros and cons, which means they can reach incredible heights but also fail miserably in some situations. If you can work around those requirements, other rangers can pull ahead and be more impactful, but if you want a more generalized archer, then Garrick is your man. I think he's particularly good for a first playthrough when you're familiarizing yourself with the game, which is why he's one of the starting characters with default recruitment order. Not spicy, but tasty none-the-less.
When I first played the game, he was one of my favorite characters, but as time has gone on, I find him a little irritating to use. He's slow, so he doesn't double and he's super weak so he gets one-shot. He hits relatively hard, unless he crits, then he hits way TOO hard and overkills them, but his crit chance is low. Meanwhile, he doesn't have the accuracy to hit most Leather units, which Projectile is normally good against. So I have to add another unit to my squad to counter that since I can't count on him, which results in me having, maybe, too MUCH Leather coverage and not enough of other things. The end result is, he hits random other targets, and not the things I really want him for, and I'm crossing my fingers that RNG is good, which just kind of feels bad.
One solid way to guarantee he works against dodgy stuff though is pair him with an Illusionist for the +40% accuracy aura, but that requires some positioning nonsense all the time when I could have just had different units in the first place.
For example: Aurima Firelord is Fire (Leather/Rune) who's ALSO a glass cannon, but has more DEX (accuracy) and MAS (dmg), so he one-shots stuff without relying on RNG. The more I play the game, the more I've come to dislike crit builds in favor of guaranteed stuff. If I'm going to have a glass cannon, I'd rather it just work. And if I'm going to be overkilling with crit, I'd rather it be a character who can double so I have two chances to get a nasty crit rather than one.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Sophia
Passive Skill:

Very squishy, low defenses, except versus magical, which she dominates. She's fairly fast, dodgy, but when she does get hit, it hurts. High luck means she naturally leans towards crit builds, however, there's some powerful aspects that can convert that to other things. In a lot of ways, she's the exact opposite of Rose, so those two can be a pretty good pair covering each other's weaknesses.

Promotions:

Best ranger for Green Knight. She can trade blows with magic/elemental users. So basically, anyone who uses Arcane/Holy/Storm/Fire she dominates, this includes Mages/Clerics/Adepts. On the flipside, physical damage dealers can mess her up pretty good, so she wants to avoid getting into melee range. Witch Hunter has Chain armor type, meaning she's scared of anti-Chain physical (Projectile/Piercing), so attacking into enemy archers is AWFUL for her while leveling. Once she gets to Green Knight, her armor type changes to Plate, so her scary match-ups change up yet again. But yes, she can absolutely DESTROY any magical foe, especially once she's fully leveled and her stats come together.

There's a few aspects that convert her massive Luck stat into something else. These can be very powerful, but there is some drawbacks, plus, they're in high demand by other character builds. Most notably for her, losing her Luck will result in a huge drop in crit chance, making a Finesse weapon bad on this build, so instead, it's better to do either Focus to improve her accuracy or Balance to improve her speed/dodge to help her survivability and chance to double on opponents, which is a massive damage increase.
With a massive amount of Mastery, she one-shots good match-ups without having to rely on crit. However, this also reduces her dodge and more importantly, her potential damage versus Rune (magic users) that Witch Hunter scales with. For this reason, having a second aspect on her and swapping them out based on what you're about to attack can allow you to maximize her damage.
Leather/Chain? Quintare
Rune? Ancara (or something else)

Ancara will give her a decent overall boost (while still lowering her crit) but it also makes her more dodgy. This makes those anti-mage fights even more one-sided. However, it is a bit silly since she already has a ton of Fortitude so they don't hurt her anyway. Also, while this does make her more dodgy, if you're really liking the idea of that playstyle and want a true "dodge archer", then Maeve is your girl. That's kind of her jam. Assassin'y archery with tons of dodge. Anyway, all that being said: Quintare is pretty solid. Ancara is a great alternative aspect to have in her inventory to give her more options, but it's more powerful on other characters. If you're not going to use those other characters, then it makes a great secondary on Sophia so that she can remove that Mastery to attack into mages too.

Solid option. The archer tree tends to lean a little more towards crit than defensive stats like Fortitude (so Finesse and crit build might be more desirable here), but it also doesn't have the anti-mage passive. You could consider Witch Hunter > Sniper as an option too to get the benefits of the first passives in that tree. Whatever you do, just remember that Sophia is a magic killer and enemy archers will melt her.

With her high Dexterity and incredible Luck, she has the crit chance built-in that this class really wants. It'll give her more defense stats, which are great, but her DEF will definitely be lagging behind, making her scared of physical squinting her way. She has no HP, so if they do come after her, she might just melt.
Cleaving (Plate/Rune effective) makes her a natural mage-killer, but you can also do the opposite and use her high damage to one-shot Plate, reducing the number of physical on the field since mages won't hurt her much. She'll be a magnet for Fire/Storm, but Arcane/Holy will ignore her.

Alternative for you: DEX + LCK + Focus = accuracy, throw Kitara on her and you have one of the dodgiest units in the game. This will lower her accuracy, but her crit will still stay decent (LCK).
I hear Garrick makes a good Drifter, but in my experience, Sophia was far more reliable.
Alexa Barbarian/Berserker feels like the same thing but better.

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Best secondary Aspect:
Honorable mention: Koeli's Spirit (swaps Fortitude (magical) and Defense (physical)) makes a fantastic secondary Aspect in her inventory that you move to the first slot to equip right before you send her after some physical damage dealers. Remember, she can face-tank Mages really well, so this just swaps that to physical instead. This is particularly nice versus a cluster of archers while leveling as Witch Hunter (Chain), which is normally her scariest match-up, but this evens the playing field. Just remember to swap your Aspect back next turn. Of course, this just swaps her defenses, she's not getting the mage-killer bonuses of Witch Hunter applied to physical, that's still exclusive, BUT, this at least gives her options for what would otherwise require funky workarounds.

Worth stat boosters?: No
Others get more benefit from investment. If you really want with her: STR (raw dmg), DEX (accuracy) or SPD (doubling).

Overall sentiment:
Situationally squishy. If you're careful with her, she can deal some pretty serious damage. A very solid ranged damage option, in particular versus magic enemies. There's quite a few characters with high DEF but terrible FOR (warriors in particular), so she makes a fantastic partner for them to take out the magic users, leaving your other DEF heavy units safe to wall in front of her, protecting Sophia from the remaining physical while being impervious to it themselves. Anyway, it's a very nice synergy.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Caius
Passive Skill:

Most stats are pretty balanced, but VERY fast, hits hard, doubles all the time. Crit below average, and bad counter typing due to low mastery.

Promotions:

Makes a very aggressive dodge tank who hits hard. You want to move a bit each turn to get the accuracy bonus, which also makes him good versus other dodge foes. Because he wants to move, it makes him a bit awkward to have in a defensive line.
Weapon: absolutely Power.
Altum: best-in-slot (he has massive STR compared to most characters)
Pelagial: solid alternative for more of a take-hits-and-give-them-back bruiser build. His overall defenses are slightly above average honestly, so he can take a few hits, just be careful not to let him get surrounded. This is particularly true because he also wants to move each turn. If you're constantly moving your squad forward, this shouldn't be a problem and you can even treat him as a semi-"tank" who needs occasional heals, but he's much better being offensive.
He's very solid on his own, but if you want him to guarantee kill dodgy rogues, he can really benefit from feeding him a few DEX items which gives him accuracy and dodge, both things he would like.
Mano: With the Bladestorm passive, he gets 100% hit chance when below 40% HP. If you can take damage down to that point, swap to Mano for a massive power spike. However, I'd only recommend this after you've taken out most of the accurate stuff. While this synergy is amazing, I think it's way too scary and begging to get him killed. Altum is just so solid on him, so I'd rather just leave it.

His passive makes him great at taking out dodgy foes, and the stat growths with the archer tree grants a lot of accuracy. I actually highly advise you not to go for a Finesse weapon. Trying to brute force him into a crit build when his crit stats are lowest of all the rangers is bad. Additionally, Archers get bonus crit chance if they're standing close to allies, but his passive encourages him to move so he's not standing next to allies and thus not getting that bonus, which makes crit builds awkward if not straight up bad on him. I think Focus/Balance is a better fit overall, especially with his amazing passive. Just think of him as a mobile archer who really wants the whole defensive line to move forward with him. Just stay away from Power (good if Strider, terrible if anything else), he doubles fairly often and we don't want to mess that up by adding a bunch of weight.
One of the sad things about this build is that it lowers both his accuracy and speed quite a bit, but increases his crit and dodge. Kinda weird, you're dodgier as a ranged unit? Anyway, I think this is overall worse for him.
That said, if you have more than enough melee or Slashing coverage and you really want another Archer, he can be (with Focus in particular) a decent enough counter to dodgy stuff. A mobile archer who assassinates those types of units, in particular rogues. I personally really like Archers as a dodge-killer because most dodgy units are Leather/Chain, which Projectile is good against, so if you're GOING to have a high accuracy hard hitting unit, Archers make good ones, and as far as that goes, Caius Archer can do this fairly well.

Bruiser. Gives him very high balanced DEF/FOR to trade blows with physical or magical very safely and comfortably (though, prefers magical enemies because GG gets bonus dmg based on enemy MAG stat). Because of his increased accuracy, he's a hard counter to dodgy Illusionists.
This is a nice "safe" option that is flexible in a lot of situations, but might not have the "mmph" to finish foes off in one turn. His defenses not being as lopsided as Sophia in this role can be kind of nice since you don't have to be afraid of stuff.
Generally, I would rather have Liberty Battlemage/Aegis over this cause she can attack at 1 range as well, opening up more options, but Caius WH/GG can be a decent anti-magical option for you (but not scared like Sophia is).

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Worth stat boosters? Yes
For his Strider build in particular, a little more DEX can guarantee he can hit the dodgiest foes, which, in addition to his passive guarantees he can take out all rogues with his Slashing attack.

Overall Sentiment:
Very solid ranger with flexible build options. He has a few more options than what's I listed, but I think those are his best roles. Whatever you do though, know that he really wants to out-Speed his opponents, doubling on them.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Maeve
Passive Skill:

Low base damage, but insane multipliers. Her gimmick is running forward aggressively to one-shot good match-ups for her weapon type (which she gets bonus damage for from her absurdly huge Mastery stat). Killing an enemy triggers her passive which adds even more dodge to her already impressive amount, which makes her invincible. Enemies will crash into her, causing her to counter-attack. She's only really good against the correct armor types though, so half of them will die while the other half won't care. She's an all offense hit-and-run character who really wants to one-shot and double her foes into oblivion, and she does it really well. Once she's out of good targets though, she'll run out of steam and want to run away since her passive won't save her anymore. She can take one or two good hits due to her large HP pool, but her defensive stats are low, so if a reasonably accurate foe is chasing her, she might not survive.
If that sounds fun to you, she makes a solid unit. Just know that her rock-paper-scissors-ness is way overtuned compared to most characters, and her damage will be pathetic versus anything that's not what she likes, but against things that she does like, she'll vaporize them. Generally speaking, 50% of enemies will be good match-ups, so this isn't as scary as it might sound. Pair her with one or two units who are good against the opposite and she'll be very content.

Promotions:
Her standard build. Slashing = good vs Leather (+30%) and Rune (+20%). Kill the ranged guys first, then whatever's remaining will attack her. Hopefully the melee will be Leather and her counter-attack will kill them too. Other stuff will attack her, but she'll do very little damage against them. Repeat.

Prioritize dodgy Ranged>Melee, Leather>Rune, badly injured (of other armor types).

Ziegrich Luminescence (half MAS = +accuracy) could be neat on her? Honestly, her DEX is high enough that I never needed it. Pure damage is better.

Her "best" aspect:
Once you finally get to Blade Dancer, the Bladestorm passive will grant guaranteed hits when below 40% HP. Try to let her get hit by some accurate foes, then equip Mano's Fury to give her a whopping +50% power increase, but with none of the downsides. Because she's so dodgy, the easiest way to accomplish this in my opinion is to use Jahno's Stupor (-60% dodge, +10 DEF FOR), which also provides some cushion for her since it increases her defenses with that lowered dodge so you don't get one-shot. However, that aspect is also highly desired by several great tanks. Regardless, you can always keep Mano on her as a secondary option in case the opportunity arises. Personally, I think it's a HUGE waste of time and risky. Just eat eggs.

She makes a mean aggressive archer/sniper who hunts people down and doesn't care about retaliation...'ish... Has slightly less dodge (but more crit) than Strider, so it might be smart to put a unit or two beside her to prevent getting totally surrounded, just in case. A lot of this build is the same as above, so I'll skip most of the redundant explanation. 3 Raw Eggs + Balance weapon was what really tipped her over the edge and made her feel great. Honestly? Even without Ziegrich, she felt great. Her accuracy is fantastic. I think dmg is overall more important.

Projectile = good vs Leather (+30%) and Chain (+20%)
Opposite of previous build, prioritize melee, because she'll counter-attack ranged. Here's your order of priority: dodgy Melee>Ranged, Leather>Chain, badly injured (of other armor types).

Honestly, very similar to her other build, but I think the other is objectively better overall for the simple reason that most dodgy stuff is melee, which will home in on her. For Archer, she only counter-attacks ranged, so she's countering stuff that's not dodgy, meanwhile the stuff we really care about surrounds her (and doesn't get countered). It just takes longer. Both are great though.

HOWEVER, because most "just works" tanky+dmg powerhouses are melee, you'll have a ton of them already, and this is one of the few ranged options in the game that's just as strong! As such, she's a low stress ranged option, comfortable backlining, frontlining OR roaming. Very flexible for any team. Thus, I personally prefer her as Archer and highly recommend it because of how it fits into your teams!

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Worth stat boosters? Absolutely
Very strong unit with insane multipliers, but low base damage. Getting a little more STR makes a huge difference and more extreme than most characters.

Overall sentiment:
She's a pretty fun roamer who absolutely destroys stuff. Need to really pay attention though, or else she might die. If you're considering using her, you ABSOLUTELY want to give her Eggs. However, some other units can also be really strong without any investment at all, so, that might make some of them more desirable. In my opinion though, dropping 15k gold to have a character who one-shots stuff and doubles up as a semi-dodge-tank is more than worth it. It makes her into a glass-cannon without the glass.
Also, I hate dealing with dodgy units, it's such a pain. Having a hard counter like this who's so easy (she's invulnerable once you get her strong enough), it's very convenient. Most archers are glass-cannons whom you need to carefully move forward with a squad and protect. Maeve just throws that out the window and assassinates whoever she wants with no repercussions. The freedom of that is super nice. She's very strong.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Rose
Passive Skill:

Sniper. A glass cannon with the highest Mastery of all the rangers, meaning she hits good match-ups SUPER HARD with insane multipliers. She's not all that fast, so it's all about one, big, meaty hit that obliterates them. Remember that because a majority of her damage comes from Mastery, when she's NOT attacking ideal match-ups, her damage will be significantly reduced. Because of her flimsy defenses, she definitely wants to be protected and her passive helps her to not get focused down, but don't rely on it too hard or all you'll be left with is a withered flower :(

Promotions:

Her glass cannon nature really only has one build that makes sense: Sniper. My recommendation is boost her accuracy so that she's guaranteed to hit rogues/adepts and one-shot them, making her a hard counter to those types of units. Wear Njallam most of the time, but you can swap to Ziegrich if she's facing off against a particularly dodgy foe. Assuming both of these aspects aren't in demand by someone else, she makes great use of them. Little bit of a hassle to swap aspects every once in awhile, but allows you to squeeze out more dmg overall. Regarding weapon + aspect... My recommendation is choose based on what other characters are in your team. If someone else needs Njallam, then do Balance + Ziegrich, but if Ziegrich is used by someone else, then do Focus + Njallam. This way, she can still accomplish exactly what she's good at while being sorta flexible for other units you may want to use. Of course, if neither are desired by others, she can hold on to both and swap them at the start of her turn based on the situation.

This alternative build leaves her with medium accuracy and makes her "okay" at killing high HP sponges, but lowers her damage overall due to handicapping her Mastery, but also funnels stats into dodge for no reason, which is wasteful. This really just makes her a worse Garrick at that point, so I don't think it's worth it. Giving up her big chunky dmg for a chance at maybe sorta chunkier damage with worse accuracy feels copium to me. If you want Garrick, then use Garrick :P he also hits harder when he DOES crit too, so, it seems silly to try and force her into that role. The only positive thing I can think of in the midst of that though is that she has higher accuracy than Garrick does, but not enough to justify the other downsides IMO. I'd much rather she guarantee one-shot something every turn, which is what her main build does...

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Worth stat boosters? Maybe
The biggest thing Rose wants is accuracy. DEX (accuracy & dodge) will help, but we don't need or want the dodge. SPD is another nice choice, however, it's unlikely we'll get enough to allow her to double on foes. So probably DEX is overall the biggest benefit to her. In general, I think other units get more value out of investment, but she can still be a solid counter to dodgy stuff.

Overall sentiment:
Rose is a powerful option to have a hard counter to dodgy foes. If you go Focus (accuracy) weapon, her damage suffers a little bit (compared to Finesse), but it makes it even more guaranteed. I think her accuracy is good enough with Ziegrich.
Anyway, one of Rose's biggest advantages is actually how she affects your team-building as a whole. See, the big picture is: she kills all the dodgy stuff, so you don't NEED accuracy on many of your other teammates. If you focus on hard damage or dodge or defenses on them instead and they just have a regular amount of accuracy (and can stay away from Focus weapons themselves), you don't need as many units trying to counter that specific threat because Rose takes care of all of it. Makes characters like Benji Barbarian/Berserker more viable (he's also a great pair with her).
Thus, she creates a lot of freedom to use builds on your other units you might otherwise shy away from. Rose is great. Her overall damage might not be as high as a generalist like Garrick, but she offers quite a bit of value to your team as a whole and is a very solid archer if you know how to build her right. She shows up so late in the campaign though :( If you do a randomized recruitment order run and she shows up early, she's a fun pickup, though, her build won't come together until she has those aspects.

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+ HP, STR, MAS
+ Decent overall stats that provides a lot of raw dmg
- Kinda slow and chunky, getting doubled all the time
? Linhera's Whisper (swaps power/spd) used to be OP AF, but broken in current version apparently :( RIP

Fairly solid option for most warriors, though a little boring. Will need regular healing and tends to have trouble actually hitting, so accuracy is a concern. Very much likes to pair with other units in a tight-knit squad, and it's favorite teammate is actually Illusionist. I personally find the (generally) low accuracy a bit of a letdown, but it certainly hits hard. If it's defensible enough, it makes a pretty solid option to rush forward to use as a retaliation bruiser, letting everything crash into it on purpose to counter-attack and hopefully one-shot a bunch of stuff.

Best: Helena (Knight>Sentinel, great bruiser-tank) / Alexa (Barbarian>Champion, great balance of stats, accurate, fast) > Benji (standard champion)

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+ SPD, DEX, LCK, STR
+ A very hard hitting, offense focused unit that's fairly accurate
- Defenses are below average
~ Cleaving is good versus Rune/Plate, destroys mages/healers/tanks
- Will need healing often
- Very low DEF and Leather means physical (archers, rogues) will home in on it
+ Fast and fairly dodgy, won't be doubled on

Middling defenses mean it can get in scary situations fairly often, but it provides constant high damage and doubles often. As long as you have a hard counter to it's scary match-ups, like a guaranteed way to take out rogues and archers, then it'll quite happily shred through enemies for you. Fairly fun class, but only some warriors can make it work.

Best: Alexa (fast, accurate, dodgy, doubles) > Benji (balanced defenses, high dmg, high crit, kinda slow) / Helena (fast, accurate, FOR, well rounded overall)

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+ DEF, FOR, HP, MAS
~ Buff support. How good it is will depend on your build
+ Makes your teammates beefier, allowing them to trade blows more safely
+ Can make squishy units you'd normally be a little hesitant about using more viable
- Can feel very underwhelming on its own, realize it's shifting its strength to your other units, and how effective that is will depend on your planning and positioning
- Since it only affects adjacent allies, it basically only works on only two melee units and one ranged. If the aura were 1 block wider, it would be a lot more useful. As it is, it's kind of awkward.

If you really like the playstyle of a tight-knit squad that moves together as a unit, this could be a solid choice for you. I generally feel that Defender in particular feels pretty bad. By the way, NEVER MAKE HELENA DEFENDER. Common mistake for new players. Wanted to mention it so you don't regret it. And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Best: Fenton (best Defender>Sentinel in game) > Helena (Knight>Sentinel, makes a great endgame tank) > Irving (Defender if you're planning to bench him later, but want a tank for early leveling)

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+ HP, LCK, FOR
+ Always attack far targets and ideally, swerve around to hit them from behind to make the path even longer, ramping the damage up as high as possible
+ Darmena's Kiss (evens crit/pwr) is OP AF on Dragoon. Seriously, one of the most broken combos in the entire game that one-shots everything (use Finesse weapon for this).
~ Not particularly tanky, but shifts some of the excessive DEF stats that most warriors have over to FOR to even them out. This allows Dragoons to charge in and at least survive both physical and magic, but not be incredibly tanky. They still prefer physical over magical in general though, so they appreciate pairing with units who can take out the magic stuff first.

Best overall warrior class, generally speaking. A lot of the other roles can be accomplished by other units, but Dragoon is pretty unique and exclusive to warrior, and again, Darmena OP. Having a single Dragoon/DK in your party is pretty solid, but you can have more than one if you really like the playstyle.

Best: Alexa (dmg, crit, dodge, accuracy, passive) > Helena (crit, dodge, better defensive stats, well rounded otherwise) > Irving (well rounded, nothing exciting to say)

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I put them roughly in the order of my recommendations. Alexa is best, followed by Helena and then Benji. I'd recommend one or two warriors, but no more than that. They're generally not very accurate and tend to lean towards having a large chunk of their stats dedicated to HP as opposed to something more useful. Also, they tend to have pretty bad accuracy and mainly be good against other warriors. But other units are also good against warriors, which just makes them feel kind of underwhelming to use in general. On the plus side, Adepts have a STR/MAG split which makes some of their stats useless, meanwhile Warriors take those same numbers and redistribute them to other places which can make them more of a powerhouse in some scenarios.
There's several characters in the game that have amazing DEF, but terrible FOR, and most are Plate (warriors & clerics). The elemental resistance aspects (arcane & holy in particular) can make some of those units not only viable, but very powerful since it removes their only real downside. I think it's at least considering having a unit that uses those two aspects on your team, though, I'd lean towards the cleric options since you HAVE to have some clerics on your team, meanwhile, the slow, chunky, inaccurate warriors are optional. If my healer can't hit stuff, I don't care. If one of my main damage units can't hit stuff, I'm sad.

But yes, of the warriors, Alexa is a beast and you should consider her at least.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Irving
Passive Skill:

He has a pretty balanced distribution of stats, as with all the other starter heroes, he's the "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" warrior. This allows him to transition into any of the other sub-classes and do fine, though the other characters will we acquire later can do each of those jobs better in some cases. Irving's pretty solid overall though, but his two specialties is his above average HP gain and his large amount of Mastery.

Promotions:

Probably his best class overall because it doubles down on his large Mastery gain which makes him better in good match-ups. Slashing (Leather/Rune effective) makes him good at one-shotting mages and archers, but struggling against dodgy rogues. Because of Irving's high MAS gains on this class, you can use Ziegrich to get accuracy, but that's also heavily desired by many units who can make better use of it.
Anyway, his ability to one-shot casters is great because his physical defenses are much better than his magical, so taking out all the casters first is good for him. Once you get to Champion, his best in slot will be Linhera (which I like to use on healers to make them dodgy) which is absolutely busted on Champions, making them overpowered (it comes with downsides, but Champion's passives remove that negative, so it's just a straight up buff). However, some of the other warriors, Benji in particular, can take it to greater heights. Broken currently. RIP.
You can have multiple aspects on you and equip before you use his turn, so Koeli can swap his defenses to magical if you have a ton of casters ahead. There are other units and builds that might make better use of that one.

Dragoons get crit on movement. With Darmena, this translates to pure power. As a result, you want to use Finesse weapon for higher crit numbers, then take the longest path possible to reach your target. So don't hit them head-on, instead, pick a far target and swerve around to their backside so you've traveled the most tiles possible, allowing you to one-shot them.
As far as Dragoon/DK goes, Irving makes a very balanced one, including with his DEF/FOR split. He'll need healing regularly, but not to an extreme, meaning he's pretty reliable and doesn't cause panic moments. The bigger problem is that because his stats become equalized, he no longer has extremes, and thus, nothing we can exploit. His damage is okay, his defenses are okay, his crit is okay, his larger Mastery has become okay.
He'll make a serviceable DK, but there's not really any aspects that super fit him better than another. Because other warriors are lopsided in one way or another, the same aspects we would put on Irving do better on them, especially the ones that multiply stats or scale with large numbers. Anyway, all that being said, throw whatever you want on him that fits your team, but know that Darmena is best in slot for Dragoons generally speaking. This build is almost a little too flexible! XD If you like Dragoons and want to have more than one, I'd recommend putting Darmena on one of the other warriors and use a different aspect and possibly Balance (Fire) on Irving instead.
Alexa>Helena>Benji all make better Dragoon/DKs.

A more offense-focused warrior that gets huge damage increases the lower your life is (terrible idea btw). This class shifts his stat gains towards Speed in particular, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it drops his Mastery down quite a bit. Anyway, it's probably the weakest class of the warriors overall, but it provides some nice damage and the Cleaving type (Rune/Plate effective), which is a nice compliment to Projectile (archers) who are the opposite.
Benji and Alexa are both better at this class.

I think Irving makes one of the more offense-focused Defenders, since it still has fairly good speed, dexterity, luck, and in particular Mastery gains, meaning he can do non-negligible damage against correct typing (Slashing is good vs Leather/Rune). It does lean more towards physical defense, so ideally, you use your other characters to take out magic units first. If you're doing a first playthrough, if you're wanting a tank early on, I think Elias makes a far better Reverie tank than Irving does here. Defender is just such an underwhelming class.
Fenton>Benji both make a better Defender.

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Stat Boosters?:
Speed (to avoid being doubled) or Dexterity (accuracy). In general, I would recommend you invest that gold in other characters. Irving's fine, but he's not going to "wow" you compared to other potential builds.

Overall sentiment:
Decent hero. Good stats overall, but not overtuned any particular direction. He's just solid overall, but nothing special to say either. His passive is kind of overrated and I think it's most useful to feed EXP to units that don't get much action, such as healers or disarm bots who are chillin' behind him to hold a defensive line. Otherwise, just kind of ignore his passive?
In general, I think each of his builds are better on other warriors. He's solid, but he's not amazing either. He makes a good secondary warrior. If you plan on replacing him, but are holding onto him for a little while, then I'd recommend going Dragoon before you bench him, since it just gives you such a big power spike in usefulness.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Benji
Passive Skill:

He makes a very mean, offense focused bruiser who can use a tanky class but turn it into a steamroller that crushes everything in his path. Hits hard, crits hard, meanwhile his accuracy and defenses are just "okay". His biggest weakness is his atrocious speed which often results in him being doubled against and not even retaliating. We need to boost that up to something respectable, otherwise, he won't provide much value.
A quick note: his passive really likes him being a higher level than everyone else, including the rest of your team. I don't think you should worry about it too much, but one simple thought for you is: he really likes having supports since they tend to lag behind exp-wise. So if you have some healers, disarm rogues, chain adepts, he likes that a lot. I'm not pushing for you to do this, just mentioning it in passing that having more dedicated support units will increase his damage.

Promotions:

Ancara can help while leveling as Dragoon and it's just kinda okay. Once you get to DK though, they get MAG based on their STR and Benji has the highest STR of all the warriors. You can use this for a Fire attack, but if instead you stick with physical, you can sacrifice that MAG for crazy defenses. Again, because Benji has so much STR, and thus, MAG on this class, he benefits from Yl'undra like CRAZY! This makes one of the tankiest units in the entire game who has massive range and can one-shot just about anything. The issue is his medium accuracy.
So, charge right into an enemy formation, ideally targeting a non-dodgy ranged unit who melts instantly. Then everything surrounds him and he retaliates on everything while taking no damage himself. After that, just swoop in with your remaining squad and finish off what's remaining.
My main gripe with this build is that Benji makes a pretty mid if not bad Dragoon. So leveling him is a chore. It's okay, but not great. End-game though, geez...

This makes a mean plate/rune killer who one-shots mages and tanks while still having a ton of HP himself. This class also has huge bonuses to speed and dexterity, which fills in Benji's weakest stats that he really needed. It'll take a bit before you start seeing the results, but once it does, MAN does it feel great!
I really love my Acolytes (which is also plate/rune killer) so I have a hard time justifying too much of that coverage on my team, but this is definitely a fun one to have.
Of the warrior classes, Barbarian has the highest Luck. That + Benji having high base luck anyway means this combination makes great use of Ancara for massive advanced stats. You can use Ancara on his other options too, it's just Barbarian>Berserker gets more benefit out of it. Makes him way more dodgy and accurate, which solves his biggest problems, but also nerfs his crit. Still worth it IMO. Personally, I'd prefer using Ancara on Samara instead (Holy, which is magic version of Cleaving), who does slightly less damage but is ranged and can heal while still being pretty darn defensible. Melee characters are a dime a dozen, so, having a character of similar strength who has ranged and other benefits= win. Sorry Benji. BUT, you do you! If you want a mage slayer, this'll do it for sure.

This is his best class by far. First of all, just know that Linhera is very overpowered on Champion because of the passives that it brings. Short version: it makes him faster with no downsides. (Linhera Champion is broken in current version of the game, le sad) When you're on Knight, he has a few other options, with Vosh being the best overall, but there's also a lot of competition for that.
A mean bruiser who hits HARD! Will pretty much one-shot anything on attack or retaliation, regardless of their class (unless they're super dodgy, his accuracy is middling).

If you really want a more tanky variation of the previous build, just make him a Defender/Sentinel instead. Same deal, Vosh's (crit & accuracy) or Ancara's (speed) makes it nasty, so even though he's a "tank" he just retaliates crazy hard. Unfortunately, this class scales with Def, and he just starts with an average amount (as opposed to a giant number we can work with). Anyway, this build fits him "okay" as opposed to his Champion which he is just made for.
Defender/Sentinel is lackluster in general, so I usually prefer Liberty (Battlemage/Aegis) or Vesta (Inquistior/Crusader) over this, but he does a ton of melee damage for a tank, and the team bonuses you get from this line are pretty cool.
Generally speaking, Fenton makes a better Defender.

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Worth stat boosters? No
I think he's pretty strong as is and there's other units who get more benefit out of it in my opinion. If you really want to though:
Knight/Champion = SPD
Defender/Sentinel = SPD
Barbarian/Berserker = DEX/SPD

Overall sentiment:
I'm fond of builds that rely on pure Strength/Magic instead of Mastery (although those can be fun too). General hard hitters that blow up everything. The high Mastery ones are just so specific that it can leave you with awkward compositions where nothing you do will be ideal. Benji just throws all that out the window and one-shots everything, so he can be a nice versatile glue to go along with those more specialized units in your army.
The bummer is, he's greedy for some very specific specialty Aspects, and if you have other characters who want them too, it can put you in an awkward position because outside of those specific items, his builds tend to feel lackluster, but with them, he becomes a murder machine who leaves a trail of twinkling sprites.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Helena
Passive Skill:

Generalist stats with an emphasis on dodge, accuracy and magical defenses. Her defenses are opposite of most warriors, low physical, but high magical. This opens up some unique opportunities for her that other warriors just can't do.

Promotions:

Knight gives her well-rounded defenses (instead of leaning too hard one way or the other) and also boost her offensive capabilities, which she really needs. This turns her into a bruiser who will need heals, but still can do respectable damage.
For her final form, you can go either Sentinel to turn her into one of the beefiest tanks in the game who still does great damage, or you can swerve into Dragon Knight. The advantage of going Knight > DK is mastery for good typing damage, versus Dragoon > DK would give crit based on travel distance and higher crit chance (which is already very high). This does give you some flexible options so you can decide once you get there which way you want to go based on your team at that point. Just note that if you do go DK, Balance will be Fire and Focus would be Piercing. If you're going Knight>Sentinel, then Focus is better IMO.
Sentinel is typically used to share high amounts of DEF, but Helena is the only one who can use it to share a much larger portion of FOR instead. This can potentially make her a good pair with some low FOR characters to beef up their ability to trade blows with magical.

She makes a solid DK with high LCK giving her great crit numbers. Darmena is fantastic on Dragoons to skyrocket their damage because movement gives +crit per tile traveled. Always select far targets, take the longest path possible and ideally swerve around to hit them from behind to travel as many tiles as possible to ramp up your dmg.
Helena is a slower, chunkier Dragoon, but comes with built-in crit to ramp her cavalry charges to great heights. She's not as fast though, so she relies on her high defensive stats, in particular her great Foritude, which this class usually lacks. She becomes a high-mobility mage killer who trades blows with them survives long enough to receive a heal once the rest of your group catches up. Alternatively, you can take out physical first because she'll one-shot them (good accuracy too) leaving only the magical which she can tank pretty well (unusual for most warriors).
Alexa makes a better Dragon Knight in my opinion: higher damage, lots of dodge so she feels just as sturdy without giving up anything. However, Helena is in my opinion the best user of Darmena to make those tiles-traveled-dmg fantastic. Alexa has everything she needs for that built in, so if you're wanting two DKs, then Alexa + Darmena Helena are the two best.

This is a weird build I need to try, just theorycrafting this one at the moment. Innileth is normally not used this way.
High: DEF, FOR, DEX, LCK, SPD. (beefy against physical and magical, dodgy, accurate, doubles, LOTS of crits)
Low: STR, MAS. (low base damage)

Because Barbarian ignores 50% of enemy defenses, some of the disadvantages of having low mastery are removed. Basically, her "bad" numbers don't matter as much. The end result is a well rounded, more offensive leaning build who aggressively runs forward and punches everything to death, regardless of armor types. Still not as tanky as her tanky builds, but makes a mean bruiser that you heal sometimes in exchange for big damage numbers and isn't afraid.
I need to try this and make sure the lower STR because of the swap isn't too awful. Like, Defender feels awful and has 65% STR growth, while this would make it 35%. BUT, she's way more accurate, way faster, so she doubles, and she crits like crazy! I think this means she does equal if not significantly more damage than Defender while having better total defenses... I don't think she's going to one-shot things, but she will be solid at rushing into scary situations and walking out just fine while bloodying the noses of anyone who dares to glance her way. Pairs very well with the healing-over-time of Guardian.
You can swap out her aspect to give her back her damage temporarily but lower her DEF. Kinda fun to do with Almadessa if you get rid of most of the physical first, allowing her to attack into them with even less fear than before. Remember that you only need to be afraid of physical if they have attack types that are good against Leather (assuming you have other units nearby that will magnet their types).

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Worth stat boosters? No
Her balanced stat distribution is not suited to boosting her in my opinion. You're better off funneling that to other characters. If you REALLY want to juice her up, I'd recommend Speed to ensure she's not getting doubled all the time.

Overall sentiment:
Her best builds are not what you would expect, so that often makes people choose Defender as her first, which makes her feel pretty bad. If you choose one of her better options though, she can be a pretty solid unit and excels as either an extreme tank or a bruiser.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Fenton
Passive Skill:

Physical defense and his raw damage are very high. Basically everything else is complete trash, including his magical defenses and speed, which are both some of the lowest in the entire game. Any magician can perform a magic trick to make him disappear. :( Those two things are kind of a typical problem for warriors, so that's nothing new, but Fenton just has a more extreme case of that. His lack of magical defenses and low accuracy can make him feel underwhelming compared to other warriors, but that's because he rocks his intended role harder than anyone else in the game.
He's a character who feels underwhelming on his own, but that's because he needs some time to bulk up and get his passives rolling to really dial up his squad to 11 and crush everything.

Promotions:

Defender was practically made for him and gives him a whopping 110% DEF gain, meaning he'll often level with +2 points going to it. Defender gives 20% DEF to nearby allies, while Sentinel gives 10% power and 20% of both FOR & DEF, so now we're at 40% DEF share. Additionally, 15% of DEF increases his advanced stats (power, crit, accuracy, dodge, speed). Other characters can use Defender too, he just gets so much more benefit out of it because his DEF gains are so much higher.
For aspects, ideally you use Jahno because it gives him more DEF & FOR to share as well as for himself personally, but also gives him advanced stats, so it synergizes with him better than most characters. His low DEX & LCK means he has terrible dodge anyway, but Sentinel gives advanced stats, which gives dodge. So even the negative dodge (Jahno) becomes a positive. It's a fun little loophole that most characters can't pull off. However, his terrible starting FOR means magic will shred him, so the elemental resistance aspects help a lot here. Because he's Plate, he'll magnet Arcane/Holy (though there's more Arcane enemies in the game in general), so you can swap to Yl'mar or Izn depending on the situation, then go back to Jahno. To avoid getting hit with the other remaining elements, the easiest way is to pair him with a Leather tank, such as a dodgy rogue (Thief/nearby Duelist) which will magnet Storm/Fire (Thief/Trickster is particularly neat in this combo because you have a 5 range disarm for anything scary). This way, you basically only have to worry about Arcane and then only switch to Holy if you're going into a group of multiple acolytes.
Because he grants DEF in an aura around him, it's smart to attack with him first, then follow with your remaining units. This way, when they attack the enemy, they'll be standing next to him and have the buff 100% of the time, rather than attacking with them first and only using him at the end.
Anyway, this build won't do much damage and his accuracy won't be great, but he'll take very little damage himself while also reducing the damage his allies take, improving the survivability of your team and reducing the total healing required. Because he's defensive, everyone else can be more aggressive.
His passive works well on this class too since it gives a flat bonus to his damage based on his level rather than his stats, so it works well with Defender's lower STR gains (compared to more offensive options). Defender often feels underwhelming and it just doesn't have enough "mmph" to accomplish anything, but Fenton makes it work, which is great.
He feels moderately impactful on his own, but it's how he buffs his teammates that's impressive, and those buffs will slowly get more extreme the further you get into the game.
If you like the playstyle of moving forward in a solid formation and crushing enemies in a wave, then Fenton is a great choice. I think he pairs especially well with some high investment dps units that might be a smidge squishy, so him shoring up their lower defenses by simply standing next to them can make him a low-investment support that boosts their power further and makes it less risky for them to trade blows with physical. It can take those other units from being "great but suicidal" to "omg they demolish everything!" One of his favorite combos is Sophia Witch Hunter because she destroys mages, but has low DEF.
Don't look at this build in a vaccuum, you need to consider how it affects your squad to notice how strong it is.

Going down Knight first significantly increases his offensive capabilities, mainly by improving his speed and accuracy. This makes him feel much better to play, while still giving him decent levels of DEF so he's impervious to physical. Meanwhile, he'll still steadily get weaker versus magical as his FOR will stay miniscule.
Like the previous build, you can use the elemental resistance aspects, and pairing him with some Leather tanks or dodgy rogues can significantly reduce the magic damage he receives.

Fenton has crazy STR & MAS, meaning, against good match-ups, he will one-shot them. With his amazing DEF, he'll be invincible versus physical, but magical will melt him. So, to me this says he's great at swooping in and one-shotting mages. That way, the remaining enemies are all physical and do no damage to him. This playstyle pairs very well with Lincoln (Guardian) who has a similarly physical-leaning build.
Additionally, just know you can upgrade multiple weapons on one character. So it's not like you're just stuck with only Fire (Leather/Rune), but Piercing (Chain/Rune) doesn't really help all that much in my opinion? I think you're better off having some other units who can one shot the remaining leather and plate after that. This is especially true when it comes to rogues, since there's no way Fenton has the accuracy to deal with that.
I recommend Orion for his aspect because his accuracy is very low and (other than his obviously low FOR) is the biggest thing holding him back. His damage is fantastic, he just needs to actually hit the darn thing!

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Overall sentiment:
Defender is one of the worst classes in the game, and it pairs "pretty well" with specific combos. Otherwise, it's very skippable. I'd recommend skipping him in general.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Alexa
Passive Skill:

Decent overall stats that lean hard into offense and physical defense. Hits very hard. Lots of doubles and crits, accurate, dodgy. Horrible magic defense. Because she has no Mastery, she doesn't scale with typing damage (attacking into correct match-ups), meaning she's pretty good at one-shotting even bad match-ups. Thus: she can one-shot the casters that she's scared of and has the damage and dodge to do pretty safely, then just tank whatever's leftover. So even though she has a smidge of that glass-cannon feel, she's WAY more survivable than someone like Fenton who would never dare to do something like that.

Promotions:

Alexa passive + Dragoon passive = +crit +dmg per tiles moved. This means Dragoon/DKs want to do cavalry charges and travel as many tiles as possible. Don't misunderstand this and assume it's in a straight line, rather, your goal is to swerve around and hit enemies on the far side, traveling as many total tiles as possible to ramp up your dmg and crit chance. If you have a wall of enemies, try punching a hole through them, then have Alexa swoop in the middle and swing around to hit them from behind. By intentionally doing stuff like this, you'll allow her to one-shot stuff every turn.

Regarding her weapon choice: While the Fire (1-2 range) attack is super cool, that only matters in a counter-attack scenario, since ideally you're charging into them and one-shotting them regardless of armor type or positioning, so having a ranged attack doesn't actually matter much here. Actually, ironically, it can prioritize attacking them one tile further away as opposed to traveling, which lowers your damage - just something to consider. Piercing on the other hand allows us to sacrifice MAG with Yl'lundra to make her crazy tanky. Not quite as tanky as Benji with the same build, but dodgy and WAY more accurate. Anyway, dodge + high defenses is overall a cooler thing for her, she can charge far ahead and soften up everything for you before the rest of your squad cleans up the stragglers.

However, she's also fairly survivable even without Yl'lundra, which is also a fantastic item on other characters, so consider prioritizing them and realize that Fire + the (usually) undesirable Theron might open up more options for you, team-wise. Additionally, remember that warriors only get MAG once they hit DK, so Yl'lundra is worthless on her until that point. Very sad, which can again make other characters using that more desirable. Like I say though, even without it, she's great. And even Piercing DK without Yl'undra is fine.

Makes a decent dodge unit that's a little more offense-focused with high accuracy and crit. I do think this is a slightly awkward fit because Cleaving is good against Rune, but she's bad versus high accuracy mages. Anyway, if you get enough dodge on her, this allows her to take out her arch rivals really well.
Her damage is great, her dodge is pretty good, but her defenses are fairly low. Altum works really well on this build because it turns her into a very aggressive high damage unit, rather than shying away. She can rush right into the middle of several enemies and kill whatever target she wants. Also, she really does get at ton of value out of her passive, so try to attack units (ideal match-up) that are far away to ramp up her damage. Anyway, being super dodgy makes this playstyle a lot more viable for this typically squishy class, and she's quite strong.
Overall, feels very similar to Caius Strider (Slashing), but Cleaving & crit instead.

By going into Barbarian first, we ensure she gets the highest SPD gains possible. Champion does more damage the higher her SPD, which allows her to hit very hard. Balance has better overall stats, but Focus will allow her to hit more total unit types (and her damage will be crazy by then anyway). I prefer balance (her Dexterity is already super high so her accuracy is great). Choose whichever feels right to you based on how your stat growth RNG worked out.
This is the best warrior combo for a powerhouse Champion, no other character comes close.

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Worth stat boosters? Maybe
3 Naja Fishlog (+2 DEX) will allow her to hit the dodgiest stuff in the game. She already one-shots everything if you play her right (Dragoon/Dragon Knight) so this would let her cavalry charge Illusionists, Gladiators, etc.
I personally think she's pretty good as is and is accurate enough to take out medium dodginess stuff reliably, but it also wouldn't hurt to have be a little more versatile, then you could literally kill ANYTHING you want every turn (depending on positioning of course).

Overall sentiment:
Powerhouse and a lot of fun. Does require either a little bit of planning, a little more open terrain OR punching a hole through the enemy line with other units that she can then pass through to reach vulnerable units behind, to take full advantage anyway. She's decently tanky, just beware of magic users who want to skin her dragon mount and make a tent out of it.

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+ MAG, MAS, HP
+ Scooches stats from Dexterity to MAG and MAS instead, which brings that accuracy right back up again
+ Hits very hard, often one-shotting stuff
- Not very fast, can often get doubled on
- Low defenses

Basically: "magical sniper." Squishy, but not quite as "glass-cannon" as some other classes, but still a bit fragile. That said, it hits HARD. The accuracy is fairly decent, but you can go Focus weapon if you're worried about it. This class's greatest strength is actually being a hard counter to Plate, able to instantly vaporize them.

Best: Alden (best overall stats) > Monroe (slow, medium accuracy due to his crazy high MAS, hard hitter) > Sara (accurate, but doesn't hit anywhere near as hard, well-rounded stats, MAS isn't as high as we would like for this class)

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+ HP, MAS, LCK (hits hard, crits often)
~ Wants high HP stats because those raw numbers become dmg
~ Also wants high offense stats because hitting harder = more lifesteal
~ Doesn't really care about low defense stats as much
- Low defense stats

Fire is good versus Rune and Leather, however, this class tends to be inaccurate, so it can't handle rogues. Contrary to what you might think, it's actually better against Rune and Plate since it hits so hard. This can be a nice alternative if you really don't want to get any Arcane/Holy/Cleaving units.

Best: Monroe (inaccurate, but has massive HP, MAG, MAS that this class wants) > Liberty (slightly lower raw damage, but higher defenses to be more of a bruiser) > Sara (well-rounded stats, accurate, but low HP which is bad here)

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+ MAG, HP, DEF, FOR
- Tends to be slow and low MAS
- Below average DEX makes it inaccurate
- Storm (magical version of Projectile) will fill same void in your team as Archers
+ Decent overall defenses
+ 1-2 range will counter against melee AND ranged!

Retaliation tank. Being able to counter-attack ranged is amazing and deals more total damage than you would think. Don't expect this class to one-shot anything, but it will do a fantastic job softening everything up for the rest of your squad. Makes a solid front-line tank.

Best: Liberty (fantastic defenses, high damage, inaccurate) > Sara (accurate, dodgy, but lower dmg and defensive stats)

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+ SPD, DEX, FOR
+ Decently dodgy, accurate
- Damage is average or slightly below
- Low DEF, so scared of accurate physical, like archers/rogues
+ Can safely tank against and beat down most Plate
+ Phase can help you save some of your units from scary situations, or help slow units catch up by leap-frogging them
+ Phase can be used to pull ranged units (especially Snipers) off of ledges or across walls and bring them into the middle of your squad. Especially once you get to Illusionist for 3 total range, this can be heavily abused
+ Massive movement is fantastic and pairs well with high mobility units like Guardians, Dragoons & Thunderlords
+ Granting 40% hit chance to allies is fantastic, and can often be enough to take an average accuracy unit and enable them to hit dodgy rogues.

Magic version of a dodge tank. Tends to lean towards high FOR to trade blows with magic foes. Being a Rune tank is highly unusual, so that's nice for coverage to magnet attack types that would otherwise be pretty awful for your other units. The accuracy buff is seriously OP and smart Phase usage can be great both defensively and aggressively.
Generally, as a tank, I find this class somewhat middling. It's supportive capabilities are pretty nice though, but you have to be intentional to take advantage of it. For example: attack with the Magician first (ideally diagonally), then have your other two units come up adjacent to both you and your target, giving both of your other units accuracy. By doing it in this order, you can guarantee you get full benefit. Don't think of it as "I have to stay in a defensive line". Just because Magician/Illusionist is dodgy doesn't mean you're stationary. They're all about providing support wherever, whenever you need it.

Best: Sloane (dodgiest, for traditional anti-mage, scared of accurate physical though) > Sara (well-rounded dodge tank, but not as dodgy as Sloane, best overall defensive stats for this role) > Alden (fast, hits hard, but not quite as dodgy)

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Pick 1-3 of these. My general recommendation would be: Alden > Liberty > Flex slot. Alternatively, Sloane + Sara Magicians for their accuracy buff can provide your squads with the accuracy you need to counter dodgy stuff, making your other units better while still providing some Arcane coverage. You can get Fire from adepts or Dragon Knights too, so don't feel like you have to get a Conjurer here.
Additionally, I really like Monroe, whom I use INSTEAD of a warrior (like a Knight/Champion). He's just a ranged version of the same thing who's a hard counter to high HP sponges, but also ranged so he can destroy them over someone's shoulder while other units, like rogues, adepts, battlemages, clerics, are on the frontlines instead.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Alden
Passive Skill:
Sounds boring right? Means his upgrades will always be decent, if not awesome. Compared to other mages who can get screwed through RNG, this means Alden will ALWAYS be good.
Note: If you have linear stat gain enabled on your file, it prevents you from having crazy good or crazy bad stats on level ups. There just isn't those extremes. This passive makes the bad ones not happen. But if they don't happen in the first place, passive doesn't activate. Meaning he gets no benefit from it, making other characters for this slot maybe more appealing, since they will have passives that DO benefit you, ya know? He's still a great character though, don't get me wrong, it's just others' value goes up in that scenario.

A very fast, hard hitting glass cannon who doubles all the time. Low defenses and dodge, but relatively high dexterity makes him pretty accurate, so he's not terrible versus dodgy enemies. Just make sure you hit them at ranged so they don't counter-attack.

Promotions:

Alden really wants to be a hard-hitting Wizard. However, you can take a variety of paths to get there.

Arcanist = +accuracy +raw damage -low crit -speed. (best in general, pairs well with his personal stats)
Magician = +accuracy +speed +ally accuracy buff -lowest crit. (most versatile, second best option)
Conjurer = +lifesteal +high crit -speed. (worst overall for him specifically, but allows him to self sustain)

Of the three, Arcanist is the most "standard" and fits him the best. It'll increase his damage by quite a bit and works well with his glass cannon playstyle, however, it's pretty slow, so he'll slowly bleed SPD over time and stop doubling against most foes, transitioning into just big dmg hard hits.

Magician gives SPD & DEX, so he'll become more accurate and guarantees he'll still double when we transition to Wizard. While this is great, it also lowers his MAS gains, so his total damage suffers in that regard. They're both viable options, it's up to you to decide which sounds better. Note that going this route first will give him the Magician's accuracy aura to buff allies, but might be slightly awkward to utilize because he's a glass cannon as opposed to a more survivable option for a support. This can make a very aggressive combo (alongside other characters) though if you utilize it well. Decreases his damage slightly to allow him to work in more scenarios while giving you just a smidge of support to tip things over the edge in specific situations. If the hybrid not-quite-all-dps-but-still-slightly-supporty option sounds good to you, give this one a shot, but know he won't be as effective as a truly dedicated support.

Conjurer is an awkward fit for him... I'm mentioning it more because some people like it, but he lacks the crit and HP to really make it shine, and he also doesn't have the defensive stats to trade blows. On the other hand, he's fast and his attacks will bring back his low hp quickly. Still though, he feels underwhelming compared to other Conjurers, so I'd overall recommend against it.
For more context too: the Conjurer line sacrifices HP% to fuel damage, so it really wants high HP to ramp that damage hard, but Alden has medium HP. But ALSO, because his defensive stats are so low, he sacrifices HP to attack and hopefully lifesteals (if he doesn't miss), but then enemies counter-attack on him and he's already a glass cannon who just slit his wrists to attack, leaving him even more vulnerable. I wouldn't even necessarily go so far as to say "high risk high reward" it's just bad on him because he's not built for it. Other mages just do it better. Like I say: awkward fit. He can brute force this option, but it's better to lean into his strengths.

Anyway, regardless of which path you choose, make him Wizard for his final class and Alden will be solid.

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Worth stat boosters? No
He's pretty solid already, and his main purpose is blowing up high HP sponges like Plate which he already does very well.
If you feel like making him nastier though, enough SPD will guarantee he doubles against medium speed units. DEX isn't worth it, don't expect him to ever get to the point where he can take out dodgy stuff, he's just not made for that.

Overall sentiment:
Great mage. Nothing else to say.

I really like playing with Linear Stat Gains because it just removes some of the RNG out of the game. I hate investing in a unit, then getting screwed on level-ups repeatedly until they're watered down. Otherwise, if multiple units level up in a single mission and they're all bad (like each getting only 1 stat), I feel like I'm kinda forced to restart the mission to get another chance at better level-ups. This just feels bad and makes the whole play experience not feel good, wasting my time for no reason, especially if that level of RNG happens AGAIN, then I feel like I need to restart the mission a SECOND time, which makes me even more frustrated. I'd rather be able to just play and having everything be standardized and fair relative to each other, which I also like because it gives me an idea on who I want to use next run, but also because their strength is relative to each other, I can tell if a particular build is strong or not, rather than wondering if it's just because of stat RNG. It gives me a better baseline to decide if a build was worth it or not, rather than assuming it's trash when in actuality it's just bad luck on level ups. Anyway, because LSG neuters Alden's passive, he's not good with that setting enabled, so I often personally don't use him much. Not because he's bad in general, but because he's just "okay" in that particular scenario, meanwhile I can potentially get more benefit out of other units since their passives will actually DO something.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Sloane
Passive Skill:
This passive means ram her into archers and mages, NOT melee physical units. Because it improves her accuracy, makes her a good counter to dodgy casters. Do NOT pit her against an accurate rogue such as a Duelist. She will vaporize.

Hard hitting, crit, doubling. High dodge and magical defense, but lowest physical defense in entire game! Beware accurate physical targeting here!

Promotions:

Magician > Illusionist is her overall best, making her very dodgy, accurate and fast. She doubles all the time and will shred Plate and trade blows with casters while being very safe.
You can make her first tier Conjurer if you're feeling spicy. Fire is a nice element while leveling to have on a few characters to have a hard anti-mage presence, but the stat gains aren't as ideal for her. Illusionist is definitely where she wants to end up. Magician>Illusionist is definitely best, just beware accurate physical, like Duelists, Thieves, Witch Hunters.

Takes a big hit to her speed, which might allow her to be doubled against. Against mages, this is fine, but against physical, this means she's no longer invincible and can get one or two-shot. So while she hits hard as this build, I don't recommend it as much as her standard.

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Worth stat boosters? No
She's pretty decent as is, but doesn't hit as hard as we would like. I recommend you pump your money into other characters. She's a pretty strong anti-mage-dodge-tank out of the box.
Her main advantage is her high dodge and doubling, which is already fantastic. If you want to double down on it, Speed. If you want to make her more accurate so she counter-attacks dodgy units and actually hits them, more Dexterity. Raw damage = Magic.

Overall sentiment:
Solid unit that doesn't require any investment. Good versus Archers (getting in melee range where they can't hit her, she's scared of their physical damage), Mages, Plate.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Sara
Passive Skill:

She doesn't hit as hard as some mages, but comes with decent speed, accuracy and more well rounded defensive stats. She won't get melted if an attack gets through, but she also leans a little more towards dodge. Being well-rounded makes her functional as several classes, but also means she won't swing the same extreme pros and cons either. My recommendation is to either double down on her already impressive accuracy to make her a dodge-killer, or to lean into her dodge and make her a tank that tags enemies with her passive debuff.

How good is her debuff really?
To be blunt, it's bad. If it stacked, and she had a chain lightning attack that tagged multiple enemies or something, (especially as a counter-attack that procs it every time,) I could see that getting nasty real quick... But 10% increased damage just isn't enough to matter. Most enemies die in 1-3 hits anyway, and it's unlikely 10% is going to tip you over the edge where one of those hits will hit hard enough to reduce the total number of hits required. And rather than tagging them with Sara with mediocre damage, what if you had a different character for that valuable slot on your team who hit harder instead? Why have a debuff to increase following damage when you can just do more damage in the first place? So if it, effectively, doesn't actually increase your damage, it might as well not exist... If you're picking Sara for that, don't. There's frankly better options. Basically, it's better to treat it as if she doesn't have a passive at all and instead look at her raw stats to decide if she's right for you.
As far as why you would want to use her (as a tank specifically) to tag enemies, it's because: why not? Especially from the perspective of using her as a low investment support. If she's not there for the damage and she can soak up some hits for your team to stall before your hard hitters run through and obliterate everything, she'll do great at that.

Promotions:

Makes her into a dodge-tank who counter-attacks with a 2 range attack against both melee and ranged to tag enemies with her passive debuff. She'll be fairly dodgy, but if an attack does get through, she has some very balanced physical/magical defenses that are decent, but not amazing. Also, because she has decent speed, she's not likely to be doubled against, and she'll counter-attack often.
However, she's not quite as dodgy as some other dodge-tanks, nor are her defenses stats quite as high as some traditional brick-wall tanks. She's somewhere in the middle, but leaning towards high accuracy, which guarantees she's going to tag enemies and really fits her playstyle well.
As far as a tank goes, she's fine. She's not quite as beefy as some, but she also does more counter-attack damage, and accurately too, which is something most tanks can't boast about. She'll require healing more often compared to alternatives, but she'll also increase your overall team damage; both from her debuff and also her own personal damage.
Sloane makes a much better Illusionist vs magic users with her significantly higher Fortitude, but Sara is better versus mixed.

Very similar to previous build, but focused on raw defensive stats instead. My only comment here is she really does not want to use Jahno's Stupor because that reduces dodge and she has a ton of that.
Liberty overall makes a better Aegis, but Sara makes a solid second if you want two. Sara also has better accuracy, which can make it easier for her to counter dodgy rogues.

Arcanist is bad on her, but Conjurer is "okay" (still not as good as Magician though). If you like the idea of a more well-rounded fire damage unit (as opposed to glass cannons like Aurima, or how horribly inaccurate Monroe is) then this is a solid enough option. One of the nice things about Sara is that because she has higher damage and defensive stats, but lower HP, her healing goes quite a bit further than alternatives and makes her very efficient when trading blows and has decent speed so she might even double. Of course, those other characters often one-shot stuff and thus don't have to trade blows in the first place. Anyway, Sara makes this class a bruiser that leans more towards defense, with decent amounts of dodge, speed and more accurate than most Conjurers.
I recommend Focus for her weapon to really emphasize it. By the way, her default accuracy is just "above average", not crazy high, so don't expect her to get guaranteed hits on super dodgy stuff, but the moderately dodgy stuff, she'll absolutely be able to reliably handle.
Both Conjurer & Pyromancer scale with HP, and she has low HP, so that's sad and lowers her dmg. If you really want the lifesteal from Conjurer, that's okay, but I highly recommend going into Illusionist next so she still becomes pretty dodgy, but not as dodgy as if you had gone pure Magician tree.

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Stat Boosters?:
I'd recommend against investing in her. She's not worth it. Other units will take the same numbers and make them go much further because of multipliers, but Sara's so well-rounded that she'll water down most investment you put into her. If you REALLY really wanted to, DEF/FOR for Battlemage/Aegis, LCK for Magician/Illusionist.

Overall sentiment:
She's okay, but kind of underwhelming. She's so well-rounded that she can't really take good advantage of many aspects and instead leans more towards a supportive role. She's not cut out to be a powerhouse, she's just "average" in a bunch of different areas, but also doesn't have any clear weaknesses. Unfortunately, as I explained earlier, her debuff is really bad, so that makes her passive pointless, which incentives you to replace her with someone else who can at least have some passive bonus that's worthwhile.
We need some low/no investment characters in our deployment, so Sara will do this just fine. However, she also won't reach the heights some other units can achieve. Her job is to help your OTHER monsters shine.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Monroe
Passive Skill:

Insane health, magic and mastery growth. He's very slow and his defense stats aren't that great, meaning he'll get doubled all the time. He hits incredibly hard, but his accuracy isn't the greatest, which can be a problem. Incredible dude overall though. Seriously, his good stats are all dialed up to 11.

Promotions:

Makes a monstrous Pyromancer. His magical defense is very low, but he has enough HP to survive it, and Fire will one-shot most Rune enemies. He suffers against high-dodge enemies, but does pretty well against basically everything else, he just hits so hard that it doesn't matter.
When attacking archers, remember to get in melee range with them so they can't counter.

Vosh is his best aspect, which gives speed and accuracy among other things, though you can use Ziegrich for even more dedicated accuracy, but it's not as good overall as Vosh. You can also keep Mano on him as a secondary that you swap to once all his good targets are gone to enable him to attack dodgy units like rogues and have a 50% chance to kill them. He already has impressive damage, but +50% power guarantees that if he connects, he will vaporize them no problem. Mano is pretty bad generally, but if he's out of targets he can hit anyway, it's better than nothing and allows him to be useful rather than skipping his turns.

Units that have a ton of defensive stats and HP usually are not very dodgy, and using an accurate unit on them often doesn't have the "mmph" to do much, they just scratch them. This is where Monroe shines and is his greatest strength. Examples of units he's good against:
- Battlemages/Aegis
- Reverie/Astral Seeker
- Knight/Crusader
- Defender/Sentinel
- Raider/Slayer
- Inquisitor/Crusader
- Guardian/Paladin
- Witch Hunter/Green Knight (get in melee range)
- Archers/Sniper (get in melee range, he's okay here, but potentially dodgy)
- Arcanist/Wizard
- Conjurer/Pyromancer

Basically, don't think about the fact that he's "fire" too much. Just think of him as a really chunky, hard hitting magic damage dealer. Ignore his Leather/Rune recommendation. Instead attack HP sponges, who often have low FOR meaning they take insane damage from magical. He melts them guaranteed every turn. Monroe is like a magical version of most Warrior classes: Tanky, hits super hard, inaccurate. The biggest difference is he's Leather and RANGED, so he can accomplish the same things Warriors do but behind your melee frontliners. His general role is a Plate killer.

Why make him Fire you ask? Isn't Arcane better against Plate? The reason is because Conjurer tree scales with HP, and Monroe has insane HP levels. HP = damage. Conjurer = lifesteal. One shots stuff all day long and heals to full. He's a self-sustaining monster who assassinates stuff and counters things to death.

This class has fairly decent stat allocation for him, but most importantly, it scales with Mastery, which Monroe has a TON of! It synergizes pretty well with him as a result. However, he still has accuracy problems, but not as extreme as Conjurer. The other build gives him lifesteal, which is how he stays alive with his low defensive stats, so not having it here is noticeable.

Not quite as strong as his other build, but still very solid and a real contender with Arden. Arden is more accurate and doubles, meanwhile Monroe just hits significantly harder. However, Arden often kills things his first try anyway, so the extra overkill damage isn't necessary? At that point, Arden is just better overall. If you really want a second arcane, this is an option, just know it's medium accuracy and not as solid as some other arcane options.

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Worth stat boosters? No
He's plenty strong at his intended role already. The problem with pouring money into him is it would take too much to make a difference.
If you really wanted to, DEX (accuracy) or SPD (to prevent being doubled).

Overall sentiment:
The most important thing to understand about Monroe is you should ignore his damage types entirely (the rock-paper-scissors gameplay) and instead try to kill HP sponges with low dodge & low FOR. Ignore him being Fire/Arcane. It's irrelevant. The best way to summarize him is that he's a "ranged Warrior": slow, chunky, inaccurate, but hits super hard. He's good against the same kind of match-ups as a lot of Warrior classes, meaning, you can swap him into that role instead. If a Knight/Champion would be good? Monroe will do that instead. I like this a lot because I tend to have too many melee on my teams, so he can be a nice ranged option to allow for more flexible positioning while still having enough HP to tank some hits even if he can't counter-attack to heal on enemy phase (because of inaccuracy). While he's not a true "tank", (he's more of a bruiser who trades blows,) he can still take a few hits to spread out damage for that turn, but his self-sustain is so high that as long as you're careful about positioning and attacking good targets on player phase, he will not require a healer himself. You can use this to your advantage to intentionally divert some dmg to him (but not all). This lightens the burden on the healer for that squad and potentially allows them to attack instead (if Acolyte) which further reduces the healing required and allows you to take out enemy forces in fewer turns.
Understanding his role in the team is important, he's not a typical Fire/Arcane unit and throws the normal rules out the window. I personally prefer him over using warriors simply because as long as I'm paying attention, he can do everything a warrior can do and more. Additionally, I think it's particularly cool when in a squad with the only Plate being Vesta Inquisitor/Crusader for example. She takes SO LITTLE damage and in this example, being the only Plate means she magnets ANYTHING that likes that, ya know? Meaning, you're reducing incoming team damage. Meanwhile, Monroe being Leather spreads out the incoming Leather damage (which he can tank and heal from). This is all opposed to having a warrior (Plate) in place of Monroe.

So to summarize: he takes the same role as slow, chunky warriors - killing low dodge, high hp sponges, such as most warriors, reveries, inquisitors, guardians, slayers, arcanists and other pyromancers.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Liberty
Passive Skill:

The best retaliation tank in the game, with higher damage and an amazing 2 range attack that will counter-attack ranged as well. Also incredibly tough versus both physical and magical while still sporting some impressive raw magic attribute to hit hard with non-negligible damage. Her speed and accuracy fall behind a little bit, but she has a great balance of stats in all the right places. Her and Vesta are really similar in terms of role and exactly what they bring to the table. Vesta's constant healing is fantastic and consolidates roles, but rather than having a STR/MAG split like her, Liberty takes those would-be STR numbers and spreads them back out everywhere that matters, making her even more of a beefcake (both defensively and offensively).

Promotions:

Fantastic tank. Slightly worse magical defenses than Vesta and can't heal allies, but instead deals more damage and has the phenominal 1-2 range, which allows her to counter against ranged units as well.
Storm is excellent versus Leather, which means she'll destroy archers, but struggles against rogues due to her low accuracy (which the Focus weapon can supplement so that she'll steadily kill them as they throw themselves at her for 0 damage).
Between her and Sara, Liberty definitely makes a better Battlemage/Aegis. She has the raw stats to take this class to great heights and can still wear the debuff Aspect if she wants to. I prefer Liberty over Sara for this class (Sara has lower defenses but better accuracy).

There's two playstyles for her:
- Frontline tank with your squad (ideally with Hecleon to magnet things to her)
- Send her out aggressively and let enemies swarm her solo (Kaithir, Almadessa). Her solo build is stronger in my opinion and pairs super well with Guardian>Paladin healing over time, which is more than enough to keep her topped off. This isn't a requirement, I'm just mentioning it to let you know of the synergy.
Also, to put it in perpsective for you: sending her out aggressively like this, I usually only have to heal her once the entire mission. Meanwhile she becomes MVP with the most damage dealt, most kills and has only taken about 50 damage total. She literally just facetanks the entire map and counter-attacks everything to death. This is without Guardian's healing over time. Just healing her between engagements real quick. That's insane... Why is she so good?!

Mano is best on Blade Dancers, but otherwise, she can also use it well. She already hits super hard, so +50% power is pretty serious, and if her accuracy isn't the greatest anyway, 50% hit rate isn't actually all that bad especially when she's facing several rogues at once which she might never be able to hit otherwise. Attack into them with her, and if she doesn't kill them, they'll attack her and she'll counter-attack on them. (It works better with Power weapon though.)
By keeping Mano on her as a secondary aspect that you equip before sending her into rogues, this gives her options. Otherwise, swap back to one of her other choices for most engagements. To be clear: Mano is a garbage aspect. This is just a solid counter to specific enemies if no Focus weapon.

The Conjurer line turns her into more of a bruiser that trades blows with her opponents rather than being a brick wall, however, it leaches some of her defensive stats and puts it into dodge instead, which she's not good at. The advantage is she gets lifesteal which provides some self sustain. After that, you can continue down the Pyromancer tree and she makes a solid defensible bruiser who one-shots Leather/Rune as long as they're not too dodgy. Or swerve back into Aegis to make a bruiser/tank. Of the two, this build is slightly weaker than the other. This makes her unable to tank as much stuff at once, but she's self-sufficient and doesn't need a healer as often.

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Stat Boosters?:
Speed is useful so she doesn't get doubled. Otherwise, Fortitude so she can soak up Arcane a little better as they'll always prioritize her (Arcane targets Plate like moths to a flame). I generally don't think she needs any investment though and you'd be better off spending that money elsewhere.

Overall sentiment:
Her ability to waltz right into enemy lines and counterattack both melee and ranged is insanely powerful. If you punch a hole in their formation and squeeze her in there, everything surrounds her and she'll just light the whole place up with zappy time as she counters them all. She will need healing eventually, but in the meantime, she'll halve the HP of their entire army single-handedly. That's not something just anyone can do and is particularly impressive for a "tank", especially one who is low investment at that! She doesn't seem impressive at first glance, but she's a powerhouse who will soak up hits and soften up multiple enemies simultaneously, allowing your squishy glass cannons to swoop in and clean everything up in a very satisfying way. Because of this aggressive playstyle, it's good to use a V shape formation, with her as the point and other tanks as the "back" wings. This scooches her forward a single space and allows enemies to intentionally surround her as she's the only one their ranged units can reach.

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+ LCK, DEX, MAS, SPD
- Passives are all pretty underwhelming
- Encourages using tons of rogues for a lopsided team
+ RNG can make you one-shot stuff, especially if you have high speed and counter-attack as a dodge-tank

Worst of the various rogue classes. I HIGHLY recommend you don't use this one. It's underwhelming and the other options are all better.
The reason it's bad is because it's not as strong as other options, but also, it has split scaling with pretty much everything: High dexterity to increase accuracy, but then has a passive that increases accuracy but only sometimes. Has high crit chance, but then has a passive that basically guarnatees crit, but only sometimes. It makes those other stats obsolete. But you still need them. The end result is: a lot of your strength is put in things that don't really matter. Meanwhile other classes get the full benefit of their stats and passives 100% of the time. Lastly, the 5% chance to kill is really bad. Like, you could have a really hard hitting defensive unit with terrible accuracy wearing Manos for 50% chance to hit and +50% power, which results in one-shotting stuff (dodgy units) half the time. That's 10x better than 5%. This class is all about crits, which is RNG, but also all the passives are ALSO all RNG. It's like RNG on top of RNG, which is very unreliable. A lot of those really hard hits also overkill like crazy. The end result is: either you accomplish nothing, or you did great, and by great I mean, just as good as any other choice you could have taken...?
So yeah, this class sucks. Only use it if you're a rebel :P

Best (and by best I mean this class is trash): Brooke (everything she has scales with this) > Cia (well-rounded stats)

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+ DEX, SPD, MAS
~ Speed scaling support class
- Low damage overall, but high speed compensates for that somewhat
+ Dodgy, can tank hits very well, but doesn't counter-attack super hard
+ At Trickster, becomes 2 range, which makes the tanking a little nicer to soften up foes
+ Fairly accurate, so will deal low damage over time to very dodgy units
+ Disarm is great

Because it's so dodgy, you can freely move this unit around and either leave out in the middle of nowhere, or frontline tank with it. Because a lot of its dmg is tied up in Mastery, it's only really good at killing good match-ups, otherwise, it's better to use its turns to Disarm high threat targets to enable your squad to safely kill everything.
Makes a decent multi-purpose support, but won't be as high damage as alternatives. Overall, a solid addition to the team because it neutralizes whatever the nastiest thing is all the time. This can make some lopsided squads who don't have good coverage be perfectly acceptable. So if you want to lean hard on a particular playstyle, this can enable that.

Best: Corvan (great for stationary tank providing buffs to nearby allies) / Wren (for an assassin who goes out and kills stuff) > Cia (well rounded as a secondary)

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+ HP, MAS, DEX, DEF, LCK, STR
- AWFUL speed
~ Tends to lean towards defensive stats and high HP to make a hard hitting lone ranger who runs off on their own to kill stuff
+ Lifesteal at Gladiator for self-sustain, but dependent on crit chance
- Loses a good chunk of stats if next to allies. Can be a problem if you have to heal them with a 1 range healer.
+ Pairs well with other lone rangers or high mobility units
- Does poorly on missions that encourage squeezing together, such as narrow chokepoints and corridors. Definitely prefers open areas.

Decent overall class that has a lot of raw power. Stats are fairly balanced overall, but gets a nice boost to everything.

Best: Wren (great overall damage and speed, doubles all the time with high mastery makes him fantastic against good match-ups, but bad against ones that aren't) > Corvan (best overall defenses, good speed and accuracy) > Brooke (high dodge, crit chance and thus healing, dmg a bit low) > Cia (well-rounded stats, high defensive stats) > Ford (high physical defense, decent overall stats)

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+ HP, STR, DEF, FOR, SPD
~ Underwhelming class in general
+ Has great one-shotting potential against full health targets
- Isn't as dodgy as most other rogue types, so has to rely on defensive stats
- Because it encourages you to run off and kill specific targets, can get surrounded and pulverized by multiple units

Overall, potentially strong option that ramps very hard. I personally usually don't use it because I think Acolytes are overall just better (Holy is same coverage as Cleaving) since they double as healers.
Best: Ford (has the stats this class wants).
Quick side note: Brooke is AWFUL as this class. Her passive makes it sound like she wants this, but she really doesn't. She's all about crit scaling and dodge, meanwhile this class is about the complete opposite. It waters her down until she's dead weight who gets one-shot all the time.

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I'd recommend you pick 2. I think having at least one dodge-tank is very nice because it can magnet certain attack types and soak that up, lowering overall team damage taken, reducing the amount of healing required. I placed these roughly in order of character recommendations from top to bottom, and within that character from top to bottom, their recommended builds for each. I personally don't usually use Duelists because I don't like the stipulation of being punished for not being with my squad, so I usually have at least one Thief.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Cia
Passive Skill:

Fast, doubles, accurate, dodgy, high raw damage. Her stats are somewhat well-rounded, but low defensive stats can be a little scary. Just like all of the other "starter" heroes, this enables her to smoothly transition into any of the class trees and build whatever you want, and do fairly well, but also not necessarily reach the same heights as some of the other more dedicated rogues. Cia is your "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" rogue, while the others are turbo-focused, having greater strengths and weaknesses to go along with it. Cia not having those extremes can sometimes be an advantage, and she'll make a perfectly suitable secondary rogue if you want to have two of the same type. She's just "good," and honestly, what more could you ask for?
With default recruitment order, she's the first rogue you get and even if one of the others is "better", Cia will still do the job just fine. So if you don't want to wait for a particular character to finally crop up in the campaign, she's a "safe" choice. A real solid unit.

Promotions:

Makes a decent dodge-tank/disarm bot. You disarm the highest threat target on your turn (at range), then the enemies all attack you and you'll counter them all (from range once you're at Trickster). She can hold choke-points and works well with her teammates. She feels very safe and her damage alternates between garbage and amazing.
Corvan & Wren both make better Tricksters, but Cia's not far behind.

Beefs her stats up to the point that she can solo parts of the map, but doesn't play nice with others anymore. With her high speed and dodge, she's pretty safe, even against bad match-ups, and if she does take damage, she can heal efficiently because of her passive. She'll be solid at this role, but not necessarily one-shot things. Her FOR could be a bit nicer, but the main element she's scared of is Fire, which Aethe can help with and can even allow her to attack into safely.
Corvan, Wren & Brooke are more offense focused versions of this role, while Cia would do less damage but have better defenses so her lifesteal goes further. I definitely prefer the other characters in this role because Cia becomes a little more of a bruiser in this class, trading blows and stalling for more turns, which is wasteful. Cia might take less damage, but she gets hit more often, meanwhile others have higher crit rates (more healing) and kill stuff in fewer hits. Overall, Cia just wastes turns in this role in my opinion, but she can be nice option if you're specifically looking for a low investment tank to stall to allow your other glass cannons to snipe from over her shoulder. Although, Duelist quite specifically doesn't want to be touching others, so that mentality is the complete opposite of what the Duelist stands for.

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Worth stat boosters? No
She really appreciates either more Speed to guarantee doubling, Strength to boost her raw damage, or Dexterity which improves both her dodge and accuracy. Generally, I think you're better off investing in other units who have more hyper-focused builds as their multipliers tend to be higher and you get more benefit out of it. Cia is a great generalist support/dps who doesn't require money to be decent but takes a lot of it to ramp her hard enough to compete with others who require less to be fantastic.

Overall sentiment:
Strong early-mid game, but falls off late game. Low investment flexible "duct tape" unit who can MVP through the early parts of the game. Most of the aspects in the game don't work well with her, and can make some of the more hyper-focused characters pull ahead and outshine her eventually once their build comes together. In other words, others will be weak until that happens, then they'll explode in usefulness, meanwhile Cia will be decently strong early on but be pretty meh once you have those other options. However, because Cia doesn't require any investment, and she's not fighting over those niche aspects, it can make her a nice low investment option as a secondary late game (especially if some alternatives you're considering mean you're fighting over the finite number of aspects).

Cia is "good", but not necessarily "great". Like I say, she'll be fantastic early on, but slowly gets left behind. She's the first rogue you get and you can either replace her once you have someone better for a particular build, or have her be your secondary. Of course, if the stat RNG on level-up works out where she becomes a beast, then she'll be awesome no matter which path you put her on. Rogues make great dodge-tanks, but there are other dodge-tanks from other arch-classes that are pretty phenomenal too. Of the starting characters, Cia is in my opinion one of the better ones.

Since you can't afford to invest money into every unit, you'll need a few low/no-investment options who can still perform well. Cia is a good option for this.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Brooke
Passive Skill:

Dodgiest unit in game. Very focused on crit and high multipliers (mastery) to ramp her dmg up even harder when fighting against the correct armor type enemies. Dodge is great, speed is medium, but her actual physical defense stats are some of the lowest in the game, so if she DOES get hit, she might even get one-shot. You need to lean into her dodgy-ness, otherwise she'll go splat.

Promotions:

Brooke's passive is incredible, however, it only applies to the first hit and you want very high crit chance. Malice is the easiest way to achieve this, but it relies on her dodge to keep her alive. She's scared of accurate enemies, so you usually use her to take those out first. To do this reliably, she wants high speed, high raw damage, high crit chance.
Alternatively, you can ignore her whole gimmick and instead turn her absurd levels of luck into juicy stats with Ancara. This neuters her crit chance super hard, but covers all of her biggest weaknesses and generalizes her damage instead of fishing for RNG. This is actually fairly solid and turns her into THE dodgiest unit in the game, who also doubles often. Very safe. If you want a chill "just works" playstyle, this is great for her.
Either one of these aspects is best-in-slot for all of her builds. Another option is to keep both of them and swap based on the situation. Ancara can hard counter to other Duelists.

Brooke really wants both SPD and STR. Her passive wants high STR to make those crits hit even harder, but if you get enough SPD she doubles, doubling her dmg, which is a far bigger increase.

Malice boosts RNG dmg, so SPD is better to guarantee doubles (double dmg, but also double chances to crit).
Ancara gives SPD, so probably get STR.
Grab as much of either that feels good.

Right out of the box, Brooke is just "okay" with this class. But she has potential to ramp it VERY hard. She doesn't care about the DEF passive, but she loves the overall stat boosts it offers to take her personal passive to great heights.
+ Very dodgy (especially if Ancara)
+ Accurate
+ Insanely high crit (especially if Malice)
- Medium speed
- Low'ish STR
Brooke is one of those units that benefits greatly from some investment. She really wants good raw dmg to ramp her personal passive, but I still think SPD is a better buff for her total dmg. Additionally, because she has so much dodge and crit, even if she attacks non-ideal match-ups, she'll probably just double-crit them to death without fearing retaliation.
Once she's a Gladiator, make sure you attack an ideal match-up first (such as a Rune) to get the Gladiator +30% power passive rolling, then you can kill whatever you want each turn afterwards.

This build feels very similar to Bianca Windrunner (which is also Chain Piercing), so if you really like that and want a second one of those, this will do the trick. One nice thing about that is they want completely different aspects. Unfortunately, Duelist doesn't want to stand with allies, meanwhile Bianca DOES want to (she gives buff to allies).

Similar deal to above. She's pretty strong in general, but if you increase her speed, she'll become a very solid ranged assassin who doubles and crits foes to death. If you like seeing the big numbers on screen, Brooke will give you that dopamine rush.
Something I find funny about this build is that once it gets to Trickster, it becomes Projectile and is like a super dodgy version of Garrick, allowing her to very aggressively go out and shoot anything, however, unlike archers, her range is 1-2 so it works in melee as well (she counter-attacks them, with great accuracy). Makes her feel a little bit like Maeve Archer, but a smidge more RNG reliant.

Corvan (team tank support) and Wren (offense) are the other good Thief/Tricksters.

Of all the rogues, Brooke can rock this one the hardest because it scales with everything she's good at. Problem is, it's a pretty underwhelming class in general. If you can tough it out though, she can ramp it harder than anyone else. And by that I mean: don't use this lol. I put this here for people curious about the Stalker tree in general.

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Worth stat boosters? Maybe
Brooke is fairly lackluster in general compared to other rogues (in part because she's so RNG reliant), she wants more crit chance, more raw dmg, more dodge, but most importantly: speed. I'd recommend using and investing Wren instead if you want a Duelist/Thief for assassin'y time, but if you want a secondary (and you're planning to invest in both), then Brooke is the second best option.

Overall sentiment:
By default, Brooke is mid if not kinda trash. Dmg is "okay" and can get one-shot by accurate foes, which feels bad.
However, with the correct build and some investment, she ramps VERY HARD becoming a serious powerhouse. I personally prefer Ancara for her builds over Malice.
Leveling her while struggling to keep her alive until her build comes together is frustrating, but if you can tough it out, she WILL pay off...! But... other characters just don't have that same annoyance and are just as strong?

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Corvan
Passive Skill:

He drops some of the scaling stats like Mastery and Crit to instead have raw offense and defense power with pure Strength and Fortitude in particular. His dodge is still pretty good, but if something does poke through, he can deal with it. This makes him very good at taking out accurate mages that most rogues are scared of. His passive is interesting too, while he doesn't scale with Mastery very well, instead, he gifts it to allies, whom THEY might scale with it.

Promotions:

Excellent dodge-tank, takes full advantage of his passive, can disarm from range to support other damage dealers, eventually becomes a ranged unit that counter-attacks archers and mages while also not being afraid of them.
This build also allows him to get great use of his passive: granting Mastery to nearby allies.

Refer to the weapon sections above ^ regarding playstyle in general. Just know, Corvan Trickster is all about staying with the team and disarming the scariest thing each turn. This can make an engagement that's normally scary and instead make it manageable. This is true with all Tricksters, it's just that Corvan also provides his team with more than just that, all while being dodgy, and even if he does take hits, he has enough defensive stats to survive.

If you are prioritizing using him for Disarm mainly, then I'd recommend you funnel your weapon tokens to other DPS units first and use Corvan as a hard support (until you have enough tokens to spare him after the more important ones are taken care of).

Has the stats to pull this off well and can do pretty well versus mages, but struggles slightly more versus physical.

Makes a mean mage-killer. Slightly lacking in damage, but makes up for it with his high magical defenses. He kind of relies on his raw stats and doesn't ramp as hard as other rogues do though, so he has a hard time one-shotting them.
Ford overall makes a better Slayer, so Corvan is usually better allocated to another class.

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Worth stat boosters? No
He's not super geared towards offense and it takes too much to ramp him into one-shot territory, so I think you're better off using his standard level of power and investing in other units.
If you really want to: STR for most of his builds, DEF for Slayer.

Overall sentiment:
I'm really fond of having a few support characters in my party, and Corvan makes the best Thief/Trickster. I can throw him anywhere and he can distract safely while eventually becoming a diet-archer. I haven't actually used Gladiators or Slayers because I tend to prefer a clustered army with them all together, so I've never done a few hard-ramping solo characters, but I can see how those other build options would work well.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Ford
Passive Skill:

Another rogue who leans on raw stats to get stuff done. He's more of a trading-blows-bruiser than a dodgy fellow like his other rogue counter-parts. Leans more towards physical defense, rather than magical, so mages scare him a bit.

Promotions:

Makes a mean Cleave unit who can overpower most foes. If he can one-shot mages before they attack him, it's great. If they manage to get some hits off, he'll be severely hurting. So unfortunately, even though Cleave is great versus Rune, a lot of those magic damage dealers will also thrash him pretty good. As an alternative, he can carry Koeli's Spirit (swaps FOR/DEF) to temporarily equip and attack them. Regarding his weapon, Power would give him more one-shotting potential, but Focus helps him versus dodgy casters, rogues and adepts, and ensures his Speed stays high for doubling which is a huge dps loss if that stops happening. Additionally, his crit-worthy stats are fairly low, so going Finesse isn't as helpful on him as it is on other rogues.

Makes a beefy Duelist with high DEF instead of massive dodge, but also hits fairly hard into good match-ups with high MAS. He has two big problems:
- His FOR is low (chain magnets Arcane (common) and Storm (more dangerous but uncommon) however, Yl'mar is better on healers in my opinion)
- Accuracy is kind of low (Focus weapon can help)
Anyway, he has some decent stats to start out with, so the passive 15% to stats on him goes a long way. Definitely the weaker of his two builds though, but can certainly work. I find him slightly appealing because he wants obscure aspects that nobody cares about, so he's not fighting over more valuable ones.

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Worth stat boosters? No
If you really want to, STR if you're using Altum's Descent in particular, otherwise Fortitude on Raider/Slayer. I think other units scale better, so he's better as a solid low-investment unit.

Overall sentiment:
His raw damage is insane, he just hits so HARD. The problem with most rogues is they have high crit stats and low base damage, but he's the opposite. Raider/Slayer is his better build as it lets him one-shot casters and comfortably trade blows with physical users, which often results in them being countered to death.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Wren
Passive Skill:

This rogue forgoes all crit in favor of doubling like crazy with very high raw damage into good match-ups. He's so heavily reliant on his giant Mastery that he won't be able to do much outside of that. This sort of ends up being okay because his passive increases damage modifiers against all armor types (both good and bad).
The big things to know about him: he doesn't like crit classes. His dodge is fairly good.

Promotions:


Makes a fantastic thief because of the crazy scalings. Insane levels of both MAS + SPD = double dipping on extra armor penetration. I often treat this class as a defensive support dodge-tank, but he makes it more aggressive and stabby-stabby. Because of his high DEX, he also has great accuracy, making him good at attacking other dodgy units (particularly fun once he has 2 range). He doesn't have the Corvan passive, so that's sad, but it also means you don't feel bad sending him out on his own to assassinate something. And even though it takes awhile to get there, Trickster is Projectile (Leather/Chain) which makes him very good at killing dodgy rogues and adepts like Windrunners. This makes him a pretty solid counter for those who can still Disarm other stuff when there isn't good match-ups nearby, meaning he's always useful.

Corvan makes a better no-investment-support Trickster, while Wren makes a better "I'm going to blow up everything" Trickster. Most of the strong builds in the game are melee, and Wren Trickster (with some gold) is one of the few ranged "OMG" options. So even though (stat-wise especially) Gladiator is probably objectively "better", I think Trickster is a better choice because of how it fits into your team and the fact that ranged powerhouses are so rare. So rather than making him Gladiator to have yet another melee powerhouse, if you make him ranged instead (Trickster), it allows you to have better positioning and fits into your team better as a whole. Also, Trickster is a hard rogue counter, which gets brownie points in my book. ^_^

Additionally, because of both the Trickster and Wren passive each give armor penetration (and he has tons of speed) he scales with armor penetration better than any other character in the game, meaning he's good versus high DEF units (like Warriors). Most Tricksters can't scratch brick walls, but Wren can do non-negligible damage, meaning he's capable of attacking into more match-ups than most rogues, which makes investing in him feel better. So while Gladiator gives raw stats for his ideal match-ups, Trickster will make him more versatile and flexible in more situations. Remember that with a little bit of investment, he tips over the edge and bulldozes through everything, which is true on either of his builds, but is more beneficial for Trickster because he can attack more targets, which makes the same level of investment more worthwhile in my opinion.

Lastly, you probably won't need him to disarm most engagements, since it's better for him to just one-shot stuff instead. However, when you only have a few enemies left, try to disarm first anyway before you finish them off with someone else to reduce damage taken, reducing healing needed, and also get free exp.

Best Duelist in the game who is capable of utterly destroying good match-ups, especially dodgy foes. Piercing (Chain/Rune) is a little awkward though, since he'd be ideal attacking into fellow rogues (Leather), but he makes a mean mage and adept killer. He doesn't scale very well with crit, but Duelist wants to crit to lifesteal on hits, so I recommend Finesse on this one even though he's not very good at that specifically. We just want enough so he can self-sustain. You can swap to Darmena throughout the level to temporarily increase his lifesteal quickly, but it will also lower his damage. Once he's full again, swap back to something else to bring his dmg back up. At the same time though, unlike most characters, he's so dependent on his Mastery (both in terms of raw stats as well as his passive) that most of his damage comes from that. So lowering his STR related stats to increase his crit isn't as detrimental on him as it would be on other characters.

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Worth stat boosters? Yes
STR. He has very high multipliers, so increasing his base damage is the biggest benefit for him. It really doesn't take much to ramp him into obscene territory where he kills everything easily. Also, because he's not super focused on crit, you don't have the RNG to worry about unlike Brooke.

Overall sentiment:
A very strong wanderer who goes out and kills priority targets. He's incredibly reliant upon his Mastery, but also has a bit of armor penetration (in Thief line especially) which can help in his non-ideal match-ups. Both of his builds are fantastic.

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+ SPD, DEX
- STR gains are overall middling, meaning low base damage
- Takes a bit to ramp up, so leveling can be a bit painful
+ Eventually becomes fairly tanky/dodgey
+ Eventually dmg starts ramping very hard
+ Has rare Piercing type which is nice once a bunch of Chain starts showing up in campaign
+ Scales well with crit builds due to multipliers
~ REALLY wants to be a fast unit because doubling causes two chances for that 15% extra attack to proc

This is a fun DPS class to have, and Bianca by far makes a just monstrous Windrunner eventually who can kill just about anything single-handedly.

Best: Bianca (fast, doubles, dodgy, accurate) > Thae'lanel (high damage, can't die, but needs heals often)

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+ MAG, FOR
+ Feels good to level, grants big burst of power right away
~ Really wants to have high MAG, MAS and DEX
+ Mage killer (high FOR and Fire attack)
- Low DEF, is scared of physical like archers/rogues
- Low'ish speed

Of the various Fire classes, this one is very offense focused, in particular is intended to kill mages. As long as you can protect them against physical, can be a solid addition to your team.

Best: Aurima (glass cannon who one-shots stuff) > Bianca (dodgy, accurate, fast) > Thae-lanel (tanky, little harder hitting) > Elias (tanky, higher defenses and better physical DEF compared to other options, so not scared of that like others)

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+ LCK, MAG, MAS
- Underwhelming class in general
- Highly encourages crit builds which do very little damage if you don't crit, making them very RNG reliant and also painful to level
+ Chain can be very strong if you know how to use it well
~ Really wants to attack full health targets and hopefully one-shot them, but it's more about RNG than it is about correct typing, so it either feels amazing or it's terrible
- Storm is same type coverage as Projectile, making this the magical alternative to Archers, but honestly, most of the Archers are better
+ Some characters make this more of a bruiser type, allowing you to trade blows (which most Archers can't do)
- Iris sucks

Overall, pretty sad class. Build them either HARD crit or make a chain support. In general, I think that rangers into Archers are just better. The reason to go this class instead would be to have Chain as an option. Being able to guarantee disable one problem enemy every engagement is quite valuable, especially for glass-cannon squads. So if you're looking for a low investment support, Surge can do well.
General recommendation though? Don't do this class, alternatives are just better.

Best for crit: Aurima (highest crit build) > Thae'lanel (can't die)
Best for Chain/Bruiser: Elias (tanky) > Bianca (dodgy & accurate)

Best option in my experience is actually Elias as a support. He can Chain every engagement or hit low-dodge units to finish stuff off for you, all while not being scared of enemies hunting him down. His dmg is just "okay", but if you're treating him as one of your final "flex slots" then he does great in a generalist role.

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+ HP, LCK, STR, DEX
- Tends to be slow and chunky, getting doubled on
+ Great as a retaliation tank/bruiser

Overall feels "okay". Against most engagements, can do fairly well. I think the biggest advantage of this class is honestly that it uses weird aspects that a lot of other builds don't care for, so if you have ONE Reverie on your team, it's pretty great.

Best: Thae'lanel (best aggressive build) > Elias (tanky)

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Bianca Windrunner is insanely good. Aurima is good if you like glass cannons. Thae'lanel has some interesting builds where you can go hard tank or hard dmg (since his passive allows you to ignore his defenses entirely). Elias is pure tankiness, so we can use that to our advantage.

I'd suggest Bianca and maybe one more. One quick note: Both Windrunner and Astral Seeker want Yl'andra's Drift (depending on build) so keep that in mind and look over those builds before you select from these choices.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Elias
Passive Skill:

Elias is a tank. He sports decent overall raw stats, high survivability with decent HP, magical defenses and huge physical defenses. In fact, his physical defenses are comparable to many of the tankiest units in the game. Meanwhile his damage and accuracy are okay, but his crit and dodge are awful! To really make him shine, he wants to either double down on his defensive nature or go for raw damage.
His passive is misleading, because it makes you think he's a dodgy, agile crit-scaling character when in reality, he's the exact opposite! If you try to brute-force him into being a crit character, you'll just water him down and he'll feel very underwhelming. He's not a damage dealer, rather he's more of a bruiser, taking the hits and giving them right back, softening them up for his allies to swoop in and clean up. He's the meaty guy that people smack and he laughs at them before punching them in the face. The ideal threshold we want to reach is: give him enough raw damage that he does half the enemy's HP on hit, so that if he does crit (with a passive we don't have to invest gold or aspects to make happen, it's just a flat bonus), he'll one-shot them, which is a neat little perk that most tanks just can't do. If you embrace that mindset, it'll give you a much better picture of what he's capable of and be able to capitalize on his strengths to the fullest.
He's a tanky bruiser, not a crit character. He's a retaliation hero.
When people brand new to the game fire up the campaign for the first time (with default recruitment order), they assume Irving (Plate/team passive) is the tank and Elias (Leather/crit passive) is the DPS when it's actually the opposite, thus, they build them completely wrong. The game does not do a very good job of explaining what's actually important in this situation, AND IT'S THE FREAKING TUTORIAL! *facepalm*

Yl'undrea gives him the highest levels of DEF in the game, and decent levels of FOR. With a melee Crushing attack, you can waltz right into enemy territory and let them crash into him, which causes him to counter-attack on all of them. Physical does 0 dmg, magic hurts him a smidge, but he heals back all of it by himself. The idea with this build is to let him soften up an entire squad of enemy troops if not kill them outright, then you can swoop in later with some glass cannons and clean up. He's totally self-sustaining and will never require a healer. However, his melee attack doesn't counter ranged, his accuracy is bad, and he's very slow, so he won't be doubling (and thus not critting very often). Still though, if you want a mountain, he'll definitely get the job done.

Variant of previous build, trades his huge STR gains for his garbage SPD gains, which can hopefully prevent him from being doubled, if not allowing him to double, creating more chances for his crit passive. We use the less damaging Arcane attack with MAG instead, which is 2 range, so it counters on ranged units like Archers and more importantly, Mages who will come to him like moths to a flame. Our FOR is lower on this build, but we also retaliate and lifesteal on their attacks. Balance gives dodge (alternative would be Power, which just misses too much on him).
He doesn't scale with dodge very well, so this is kind of an odd build, but it takes advantage of his huge STR growth on this class to put it into something useful. Less damage per hit than previous build, but hits more targets (more total dmg & lifesteal).

Storm is the magical version of Projectile, so he ends up being a bruiser who trades blows with foes as opposed to being a glass cannon like most archers are. His damage is lower, but he's beefy enough to not be afraid, while occasionally critting for some chunky hits. He has medium accuracy though, so he doesn't do well against particularly dodgy stuff. Either way, he's quite solid as a reliable Chain user to lock down high threat targets and isn't afraid of retaliation.

Turns him into a fantastic offense-focused bruiser. Once again, Yl'undrea's dumps his useless MAG for a massive defense boost. Enemies crash into him and he gets a bunch of free attacks which each have a 10% chance to crit from his passive.
This is less tanky than his previous builds, but it does significantly more damage and is very efficient (capitalizes on all his strengths). His weapons are fairly flexible. Balance is probably best overall because it increases his defenses but also ensures he's faster (to hopefully double, which increases his damage quite a bit). Otherwise (Finesse) is pretty bad on Windrunner since it has such terrible LCK growth, but it works with his passive, so... Choose whichever sounds like fun.
Gale>Windrunner = more hits, more crits, more dmg.
Reverie>Windrunner = lifesteal.
Bianca makes a better Windrunner overall in my opinion. Little faster, dodgier, but she's also more accurate. She guarantees she's doubling all the time, while Elias is more THICC and has the low chance for chunky crits.

This class is a slightly awkward fit as it's designed to overpower your opponent with raw firepower, but he lacks the "mmph" (low MAS, DEX, LCK) to make it happen. Instead he brings a ton of FOR (this class already gives you a bunch) making him seriously invincible versus casters, and then a massive amount of DEF (which this class usually doesn't have at all) making him a chunky bruiser versus physical. However, his damage will be mediocre, and this class greatly benefits from killing stuff fast to ramp up its buffs, but if it takes multiple turns to do so, its effectiveness drops severely.
Anyway, he's a low-stress option and he'll definitely work in this role. Overall, I think Aurima, Thae'lanel or Bianca do it better.

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Stat Boosters?:
Speed - to avoid doubling, hopefully double himself.
Strength - Improve his raw damage.

Overall sentiment:
Solid character who is "stable" and doesn't fluctuate much. He doesn't have the massive pros and cons of other units who could potentially reach greater heights, but doesn't have all the risks associated with that either. On the one hand, that makes him kinda boring, but he's a low-stress option that works well. Great for a first playthrough when you're getting a feel for the game, which makes sense considering he's one of your starting heroes.
My personal favorite use for him is as Surge>Thunderlord chain support for a flex slot in one of my squads. I don't think it's particularly amazing, but it's low stress and I can replace him later if I'm not feelin' it.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Bianca
Passive Skill:

Bianca in a few words: Accurate, dodgy and fast! She doubles all the time and is very good at killing dodgy foes herself while out-dodging them. The rest of her stats are relatively well-rounded, but falls a little flat with Mastery and crit. This means she's more generalized in terms of her match-ups. While defensive stats are okay, her HP itself is laughably low, so she really relies on that dodge to stay alive. My recommendation would be to build her while keeping her accuracy and dodge in mind, rather than trying to make her into a bulky defensive unit, emphasize her speed, accuracy and dodge instead. Likewise, I'd steer clear of crit builds because it's an uphill battle with her. Yes, you can brute force her into it, but it's better to lean on her strengths rather than trying to water her down.
Whichever path you take though, just note that her passive is nothing to sneeze at and provides a great buff for your team. So trying to keep her with a group is also very strong, even if she herself might not hit as hard as you would like.

Promotions:

She is amazingly tanky as this build, high accuracy and doubles all the time. Her LCK gains are extremely low (like, seriously low compared to most characters) so Finesse is pretty underwhelming on her specifically, however, Windrunner gets a bunch of extra attacks that do 30% more damage. If you crit on those hits, it goes much further. So even though the crit chance is low, she has more total hits for that low chance to proc, meaning increasing that chance is very good. Very much feels like a World of Warcraft Enhancement Windfury Shaman. Anyway, pick whichever you like: Balance = dodgy, Finesse = dmg.
Unfortunately, she has middling STR which this class has lower STR growth too, which compounds. So if you do try to build crit or Mastery on her, it's only multiplied by a small number. As such, she REALLY wants you to feed her some Raw Eggs which goes a long way. It doesn't take much before she's doubling enemies into oblivion while simultaneously being one of the tankiest units in the game. The damage is so high that she will basically kill anything, regardless of armor type.
Yl'undra is her best in slot. Otherwise, going for a general damage aspect is probably second best on her. You may be tempted to slot in Altum's Descent (30% STR= +dodge), but because her STR is so low by default, it's far less impactful than when used on other characters who desire it more.

If you really like this unit and want a second one for your other squad (or as an alternative) very similar is Wren/Brooke Duelist>Gladiator which is another Chain Piercing dodgy accurate roamer. It feels very similar and just as overpowered. SO, you can basically have a second Bianca, or have Wren/Brooke instead. One of the reasons to consider this is that Yl'undra is also desired by Reverie/Astral Seeker (Crushing) to make an incredible lifesteal tank. So if you really want both of those things, then Wren/Brooke are solid alternative options who each want different aspects.

Anyway, this build takes a bit for the stats to really come together (partially because Yl'undra becomes available after Chapter 15, we get Bianca at Chapter 3), so she can feel a smidge underwhelming at first. She's one of the first units you acquire, and I personally like to buy her 3 eggs immediately because it already makes her feel a lot better to use, and it only gets better from there. Nice thing here is you already know she's a worthwhile investment, so it's safe to do so, rather than hoarding your money for a rainy day to invest in a different unit who will provide the same value...? Might as well use it on the character you have to MVP you through the earlier missions rather than stalling for a unit you don't have yet and will have enough money for both by the time you acquire that one, ya know?

Makes a very accurate, dodgy Firelord. Her raw damage is lower than Aurima, but she can reliably take out dodgy leather & rune, which is nice to have a hard counter to Illusionists.
A big advantage of this build compared to the other is that she gets a huge power spike right away, as opposed to the other build which takes awhile to come together. They're both very solid, though this one will need healing every once in awhile.
I think one of the biggest advantages of this build is that it works better with obscure aspects, freeing up more important ones for others, however, this also means she doesn't have anything super great she can use here either.

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Overall sentiment:
Solid unit. Both her builds are fine, but Windrunner can seriously get *chef kiss*, one of the best builds in the game; it starts out just "okay" but as soon as you give her some STR, it becomes "great", which will carry you through the entire game, but ramps to become insanely good by end-game.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Aurima
Passive Skill:
Glass cannon who hits very hard against correct typing due to high mastery. His defensive stats are absurdly low, but has high HP so he can tank a few hits if his dodge doesn't save him. His scariest match-up is accurate hard hitters or people significantly faster than he is because they'll double him to death.
His passive encourages an all-offense approach where he finishes off enemies to get a stacking damage buff. I'd recommend you ignore this unless you go Blaze/Firelord (arguably his best class). Word of warning though: our goal with his buff is just to get him tipped over the edge. Do not try and stall to allow him to kill everything. Completing a mission gives you gold based on how many turns you took, taking longer = less gold, which hurts you in the long run. The same is also true regarding exp, if Aurima is the only one you're letting kill stuff, your other units will steadily fall behind. Anyway, think of his passive as a neat bonus. Take advantage of it when you can, but not so intently that it hurts you.

Promotions:

A hard-hitting, accurate magic damage dealer who tries to one-shot his opponents. This class fits Aurima very well, doubling down on a lot of the things that he does by default which maintains his specialized role with high HP, MAS and DEX, which means he's fairly accurate and hits very hard into good match-ups. Fire (Leather/Rune effective) makes him into a mage killer, though, with his solid accuracy, he could be fairly solid against rogues as well.
One of the Blaze passives gives a stacking 4% power on kill, which stacks with Aurima's 2% and highly encourages you to let him be the one to finish off enemies to get a ramping buff. If you have multiple units available against fewer opponents, it's smart to soften them up with one of them, then have Aurima land the killing blow to guarantee he gets the buff. Once he has enough, he passes a tipping point where he one-shots basically everything. Note however, a big chunk of his damage comes from Mastery, so when you're NOT attacking Leather/Rune, you'll see a big dip in his damage. The buff can give you enough power so that it doesn't matter eventually, just be prepared for that. Always attack ideal match-ups if you can!
Focus>Power because I don't want the extra weight. Once his buff is stacked enough, he one-shots things anyway. This necessitates being careful at first, but accuracy will let him hit more total unit types. Basically, Focus lets me guarantee I get the buff, while power makes it easier to get the buff in the first place, assuming you don't miss. At the same time, he has high DEX, so his accuracy is better than most units, so we can afford to get Power. Pick whichever you like.
Also, his speed is not great, but going power lowers his speed further, which risks him being doubled on. He's already a glass cannon...
Innileth allows you to prioritize taking out casters, leaving him safe against physical.

So, here's the deal: Thunderlord is a pretty fun class that's all about crit scaling. In fact, you want as much crit as you can possibly get. But unlike other classes that use it with modifiers to make that damage ramp even harder, TL just wants the crit chance itself. The reason is because it has a bunch of extra flat damage that gets added on top whenever you crit. Aurima is kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum. Very high MAG, MAS and DEX, but no LCK. That DEX gives him lots of accuracy and some dodge, but his lack of LCK is terrible. This means he attacks into appropriate typing well (Chain/Leather), but if he doesn't crit, he's not getting the bonuses of this class, and thus it feels very underwhelming. There's two aspects that can help a lot here:
Malice = Glass cannon.
Quintare = More crit overall, but lower damage when we crit.

Either one of those will turn him into an AMAZING crit unit (until you get them though, he'll feel pretty bad). Malice is probably better overall offensively, since we'll still have the MAS to juice up the initial hit and hopefully one-shot things (to get Aurima's passive stacking buff).
Aurima by himself wasn't really made for this class, but once you give him enough crit, all his other stats come together to make a nasty, hard hitting beast. His accuracy in particular is nothing to scoff at, since he can hit relatively dodgy foes without much trouble.

I overall find this build a bit frustrating. Once it all comes together, you end up with a massive 70% crit monster with decent stats. However, if he doesn't crit, then he's sad (since he has about as much defenses as tissue paper). Firelord gives more regular consistent damage and it's less painful to level than this is. Also, TL really wants you to attack full health targets for bonus damage, but Aurima wants to finish off low health targets to get his passive buff rolling. They're encouraging opposite playstyles in a way. Also, TL encourages chaining if that turn is awkward, which is a stalling tactic, the opposite of what he wants. Ideally, it'd be the other way around: chain it with someone else, have AURIMA finish them off.

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Overall sentiment:
Quintessential glass cannon, with tons of raw damage, mastery, accuracy. As long as you're careful, he's pretty much guaranteed to kill anything in one hit. In a lot of ways, this means his viability is really more dependent on the other units in your squad and your strategy than it is on what he offers in a vacuum. If you have a playstyle that's accounting for his requirements, he'll be amazing.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Iris
Passive Skill:

Her gimmick is trying to use crits and dodge to stay alive, all while hitting fairly hard. Her high LCK gives her crit rate and dodge, but some promotions benefit from that more than others. Her stats are awkward and very lopsided. In particular because it encourages her to be a brawler, but her defensive stats are some of the lowest in the game. Her passive gives her HP on crit, but she has a TON of HP, meanwhile she takes more damage than most characters and possibly doubled on. It's a similar problem to Samara, but it's even worse here.
So, if we can address her concerns, we'll be able to take advantage of her positives and create a strong unit, though, that means we're waiting for specific items and you'll have to carefully keep her alive until then.

Promotions:

Yl'undra's Drift sacrifices her extremely high MAG (compared to other characters) to boost her low defenses. This solves one of her main problems and makes her fairly tanky, though it's better on some classes than others. It becomes available after Chapter 15, 4 chapters after we acquire her.
Zeltar's Flight swaps her STR for SPD. Again, because she has so much more STR compared to most characters, this goes further, so she makes good use of it. Only usable on specific builds. Nice thing here though, ZF is acquired when you complete Chapter 10, so you'll already have it when you finally get Iris.

Because her STR and MAG gains are higher than most adapts, Yl'undra goes further on her. She makes a slow windrunner who hits HARD, crits often and is fairly dodgy.
However, her medium SPD leaves her unlikely to double, and medium DEX means she'll miss on anything dodgy. Finesse weapon = more lifesteal, Focus = more targets you can hit.
The end result of all this is a slow, chunky, meaty life-stealer. If you love her, you can throw gold at her to buy her DEX (accuracy & dodge) or SPD (prevent being doubled on), though I don't think she snowballs as hard as some other characters.

These are the two common builds for Reverie, but Iris can take bigger advantage of it than most because of her higher STR/MAG levels compared to other adepts. Her high LCK gives her high base crit chance which she lifesteals off of, which is in addition to the lifesteal this class already comes with, giving her the highest levels of lifesteal in the game.

Balance + Zeltar = 2 range Arcane attack, allowing her to counter-attack ranged as well, while being very fast to double all the time. Her FOR in particular will still be very low though, so be careful. Likewise, her accuracy is pretty bad. Ideally, she's used to attack Plate units.

Focus(accuracy)/Finesse(crit) + Yl'undra = melee Crushing attack. This will beef up her defensive stats which makes her impervious to physical and just "okay" versus magical. However, she'll be painfully slow and maybe even doubled on. I overall think Focus is better since it allows her to hit more total targets = more lifesteal. Yeah, crit rate is nice, but if you don't hit at all, even the crit chance you have won't do anything in the first place. Remember, Astral Seeker gets lifesteal on hit ALREADY, her crit lifesteal is a BONUS thing on top of that! Getting guaranteed consistent healing is what will keep her alive. Bonus healing is a bonus. Though, crits can also one-shot stuff... so there's that...

Between the two, I think Zeltar is better for the simple reason that she can ranged attack melee Plate, but also counter-attack on ranged units attacking her to provide more self-sustain. She might not hit as hard as the physical build, but because she's doubling, her total damage is higher. Also, because she's lifestealing significantly more, I think this makes up for the lower defensive stats.

2/10 with Vosh, 1/10 without. Her passive really wants to use this class. It sounds so good. Unfortunately, it leaves her with all the defenses of a slice of cheese. She hits fairly hard, but enemies counter-attack and one-shot her. If you have her here, she's better off as a Chain support, but, at that rate, you're better off with other characters doing that who have more survivability. Zeltar's Flight really help by making her dodgy and double more often, but that's only while she has high base STR stat which will start falling off as she gains levels due to her stat growths changing by switching classes, so this aspect will only be impactful at first.
As a Chain Support, I think the Linhera's Whisper is her best aspect as it lowers her damage, but significantly increases her dodge and prevents being doubled.
Sadly, all the other adepts do Thunderlord better than she does. Aurima does more damage, Thae'lanel/Elias make better chain supports. Ancara can add a ton of useful stats to her, but also murders her crit and thus, her lifesteal. Vosh is her best-in-slot, but it's also in high demand by a lot of other units that are, frankly, just better than she is.

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Stat Boosters?:
I recommend investing in other characters, but if you really want to give her something, probably DEX (+accuracy, +dodge).

Overall sentiment:
Iris is a bruiser-retaliation-tank. General idea is you send her forward and let her soften up stuff while dodging and lifestealing to stay alive. I find this whole thing a little gimmicky and scary. It just kinda throws RNG into the mix for flare, but doesn't make her any more powerful than anyone else. So sometimes she just counterattacks and overkills everything, one-shotting stuff left and right, and other times, she just misses a bunch and dies quickly, either case because of random chance. I personally find this frustrating as other characters can accomplish similar things with more predictability. Like I say, not any better, just different. I'd rather get something consistent, but you do you.
Also, yay, lifesteal. But lower defensive stats, so she takes more dmg in the first place, making it a wash. It sounds more fun on paper than in practice IMO.
Personal recommendation? Skip.

In-depth stats, aptitudes, growths, etc: https://darkdeity.wiki.gg/wiki/Thae'Lanel
Passive Skill:

One of the best passives in the game, preventing him from being one-shot, it takes at least 4 enemy attacks to kill him. This allows him to comfortably attack into even terrible match-ups and be okay. He's an interesting mix of glass cannon and bruiser who can either be very offensive, or defend along with your tanks. Pretty neat overall stat distribution, though, once again, we have too much of it allocated to both STR and MAG simultaneously meaning one of those won't get used at all.
One VERY important thing to note about his passive though: He needs enough speed to not be doubled, because if one nasty enemy doubles on him, that's 2 30% HP hits. Thus, guaranteeing he has enough speed is crucial to not melting into a puddle of sadness.

Promotions:

His best build IMO. Arcane (magic scaling), fast, dodgy, 2 range, counter-attacking tank which results in high self-sustain since he'll counter-and-heal on enemy's ranged attacks as well. It does slightly less damage than the STR version, but provides a lot more survivability. Here, instead we're converting that giant STR number into speed, which allows him to dodge, double and counter-attack, when he'd normally be slow and chunky. But the biggest advantage here is that HE doesn't get doubled anymore! Normally he can survive up to 4 attacks before needing a medic, but with this build's dodge + doubling + lifesteal, it's more like 8+ attacks... That's a significant upgrade and it gives time for damage dealers to swoop in and finish stuff off. Kinda fun when paired with Acolyte/Phamtoms because they can focus on damage and only heal him after the dust settles. Who needs Priests when you can just blast everything to pieces and consider healing afterwards! XD
If I had to say a downside here, it's that the damage could be a little higher, and also he really wants some more accuracy when fighting dodgy opponents because he can't lifesteal off them.

Crushing (strength scaling), accurate, aggressive bruiser who wanders out, going after plate/chain wearers and shrugs off anyone who gets in his way.

Hard hitting Piercing damage with multiple attacks. He's not as dodgy as Bianca, but he does quite a bit more damage per hit. He's a lot slower though, so he struggles to double.

As far as class variation, you can go down Gale first for extra damage, or Reverie first for the lifesteal, but either way, end up in Windrunner for a mean dps that can trade blows very well. Will need some healing regularly.

Makes a solid Firelord. Lots of damage, obliterates mages. He does less damage than Aurima in the same role, but he's more survivable, especially when physical damage dealers start harassing him, he can chuckle at their adorable antics, then go back to murdering his priority targets. Fire bests Leather & Rune, but his accuracy suffers a bit here, so if you want him to counter rogues, you might want to do Focus weapon.
This build will absolutely need a healer handy, but provides great damage.
Innileth being his best-in-slot is amazing because it solves the Firelord DEF problem that most can't deal with + it's an obscure aspect most don't care about, making this a nice build that doesn't conflict with other characters.

This squishy class really wants to go hard crit, but that's suicidal, making it feel bad. Surge + Malice + Thae passive = can't die! You'll have to heal him regularly, but can spam crits like crazy. Can use for damage or chain bot effectively. Just be careful going against particularly fast foes who can double him, doing 60% of his HP.

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Stat Boosters?:
Speed - you want enough to make sure you don't get doubled against (very big deal with him). But note that you should only upgrade speed on his three other builds and NOT his tanky Arcane Astral Seeker (Zeltar's Flight) build, since that swaps his SPD and STR. You would literally be upgrading a stat that you then throw away. Oops.
Dexterity - Accuracy, which is good on all of his builds.
Luck - Thundelord.

Alternative Aspect: Hecleon's Pride (enemies target more)
So, hot take: I think he's one of the best users of this Aspect by far. Instead of focusing on his survivability or damage, he'll be a little weaker, but he'll magnet enemies to him, which works even with bad match-ups. This takes the whole rock-paper-scissors aspect of defense out of the equation entirely. You can build him a tanky life-steal Reverie to extend the number of hits he can take each turn or even go hard DPS for the counter-attacks that might just kill his attackers anyway, but reduce the number of enemies he can safely soak up at a time. Either way, he'll survive at least 4 attacks guaranteed and then just have a healer ready to rumble. This playstyle is very strong when paired with cavalry/high offense physical units like Dragoons/Dragon Knights, Raider/Slayer, Witch Hunter/Green Knight, Barbarian/Berserkers and even Duelists/Gladiators.

One of his favorite combos is pairing with a Guardian/Crusader to get healing over 3 turns. He has enough tankiness to make that reduced healing bring him back to full every turn.

Overall sentiment:
Very strong hero. Makes a great self-sustain tank or aggressive bruiser that you need to heal often in exchange for solid damage. His passive can be heavily abused if you do it right. Some heroes have passives that are pretty "meh" or only give a slight advantage. His is so good that you ABSOLUTELY want to lean into it and take advantage of it. If you treat him like a regular unit and ignore it, you're missing out on his potential. The mindset to have with him is: he's absolutely going to take hefty damage each turn, BUT, there's a hard limit on that damage, so there's no downside to making him a glass cannon and going balls-to-the-walls dps.

You can use your gold to buy weapon tokens, consumables or stat boosters. You get weapon tokens (especially low tier ones) just by playing the game and you'll eventually have too many tier 1. Eventually, you can buy a couple tier 3 & 4 tokens closer to endgame, but until then, I'd recommend you wait to acquire your tokens naturally. I haven't actually tallied how much gold you get in a regular playthrough, so I'm not sure exactly how much we have to spend. I'll try and pay closer attention next time.

Anyway, you can make a "pretty good" unit into an absolute MONSTER who destroys everything. You only have enough gold to invest into a few units though, so who should you use and what's the most efficient allocation of resources? We want just enough investment in the right areas to tip them over the edge.

In my experience, having a HARD counter to dodgy units is the biggest thing that will help you, so if we're going to invest in units, making those ones good is best. Of our 14 deployed units, I recommend you make 2 squads of 7 that are each self-sufficient. Within that, we need enough accurate coverage to counter the following:

Dodgy Rune: Priest, Acolyte/Phantom, Magician/Illusionist
Dodgy Leather: Prophet, Strider/Blade Dancer, Stalker/Assassin, Thief/Trickster
Dodgy Chain: Gale/Windrunner, Duelist/Gladiator

So my recommendation is pick 4 from below and feed them (up to) 3 stat items each for a total of 12 (costs 5000 gold each) but you do find some throughout the campaign, so we're not actually purchasing all of them. We want accurate coverage for all three armor types. Look over the below options and maybe even use some of these units without investing stat items in them for a bit and decide if it's worth it to you, then upgrade the ones you like best.

Roams and assassinates dodgy targets, gaining a dodge buff making her invincible. Raw dmg is low, but multipliers are insane, so STR helps a TON. Worth it.
Glass cannon with high accuracy, dmg and MAS (meaning she obliterates good match-ups). Kinda slow though, so will not double. Just snipes foes instantly with a single hard hit. She could use just a smidge more accuracy though. Recommend investing in others first.

Roams and assassinates dodgy units (especially rogues), gaining dodge buff making her invincible. Raw dmg is low, but multipliers are insane, so STR helps a TON. Worth it.
Hard hitter who doubles often. Wants to move every turn for passive accuracy bonus. Very strong, but not quite accurate enough to hit super dodgy stuff... DEX tips him over the edge, providing accuracy and more dodge. Worth it.

Tanky, dodgy, accurate, great multipliers. Her raw dmg is her only downside. STR tips her over the edge to make her one of the strongest units in the game. Worth it.

Roaming assassin. Very dodgy and accurate. Low base dmg, high multipliers. STR tips him over the edge. Worth it.
Similar to above, but even more dodge and highest crit rate in game. Suffers from medium base dmg and SPD. If we can get her to double reliably, this doubles her dmg. Slightly RNG reliant, so Wren is better overall. You can also give her more STR if you have extra gold later. Recommend others first.

Very high SPD & MAS, making him a very hard hitter. His base dmg is low, so STR helps a ton. Worth it.
Can also use Malice's Suffering for this build, but I like the dodge if she's Trickster to make an invincible dodge-archer who can solo parts of the map. Slightly RNG reliant. We want her to have enough SPD to reliably double, which also increases armor penetration for this class. Recommend others first.

Cavalry who can one-shot anything if she has enough distance to travel. Accuracy is already "decent" so a smidge more makes it *chef kiss* and allows her to literally kill anything! However, a majority of her damage comes from movement, so even if she's more accurate, once she's holding still, she might not be able to counter-attack units that attack her and do enough damage to kill them. Keep that in mind before you invest in this one. I generally think she's better used against medium dodgy or high HP units, she's just a solid counter to 80% of units, filling in that final 20% isn't particularly necessary? Investment is low priority in my opinion, but if you love her, do what makes you happy XD I figure: she's already a hard counter to everything else that making her a hard counter to literally EVERYTHING IN THE GAME is a bit excessive. We want a balanced team, and she already has a job.

Glass cannon who hits very hard. If he were just a smidge faster, he could reliably double. Investing is moderately helpful, recommend others first.

Really good already, but a little more accuracy and dodge doesn't hurt. This is particularly nice on his dodge build as it improves both. Worth it if dodge build to tip him over the edge, so-so for regular build, so probably invest in others first.
Decent dmg, accuracy, dodge, speed, doubles often. Just above average in several categories. More DEX = more accuracy & dodge. She doesn't hit as hard as some alternatives, but she's a powerhouse with no real weaknesses. Only invest if you really like her, recommend others first.

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Missions often force you to split up, so of our 14 slots, try to build a team that allows you to make two groups that are self-sufficient.

In order to maximize your damage and capabilities, it's important to have a healthy mix of both. This is particularly true with missions that have narrow corridors. There's some great melee "roamers" who like to split off from the group and do their own thing, but be careful having too many of those (especially melee) because there's a lot of times where you're forced to hold choke points or move through a congested 2 wide hallway or even defend there for an extended period of time.

You'll need attack types that are effective against different armor types. My biggest worry here is dodgy units, which mostly consist of rogues (Leather). As such, having an accurate unit that's good versus Leather is ideal a majority of the time. Projectile/Slashing/Fire/Storm.
Plate is mostly high DEF (physical) and low FOR (magical) so ideally a magic user (Arcane or Holy) to shred them instantly, but there's some solid Cleaving units too. However, since Plate usually has low FOR, any old magic damage can work if you hit hard enough. So don't worry about countering Plate too much, as long as you have some decent magic damage on your team.
Chain is an odd one that has a mix of bulky units and dodgy ones. My recommendation is either Projectile or Piercing.
Rune is mostly slow magic users, but Priests, Acolytes and Illusionists are all very dodgy, so accuracy here might be important too. Slashing, Cleaving, Fire, Holy.

You can also have one or two units of the same attack type that do good against multiple. For example Slashing/Fire is good against Leather and Rune. Well, if you have two or three really solid Slashing/Fire units in that squad, and at least one of them is high accuracy, then you've got that covered for both armor types. But what this also means, is that you REALLY do not want more Leather and Rune coverage! So ideally, your remaining units would be the OPPOSITE types (Crushing/Arcane, which are good versus Plate/Chain). This gives you a balanced team that can ideally one-shot several enemies each engagement and then clean up whatever remains.

There's some very strong glass cannons who can pick off others and also be picked off themselves. These tend to like hiding behind a wall of units. This often means you have one or two units who can vaporize just about anything, but pair the best with units who are crazy tanky, meaning those units don't do a lot of damage. This is fine, but just notice the synergy but also pros and cons of that. If that's a playstyle you want, that's fine, but you'll have to account for it in your team building and recognize the necessity.

There's also some pretty strong support options that offer passive bonuses to nearby allies, which encourages huddling together as a group to share buffs. Defender, Illusionist, Archer, Corvan, Bianca, Irving, Faust to name a few. With some careful planning you can take great advantage of this. If you're using units that have this kind of synergy, don't ignore it completely or else you'll miss out on some powerful combos.

This is something that maybe isn't apparent to first time players. The AI is honestly... pretty stupid... And you can abuse it. Basically, their order of priority goes:
- Good target that is ideal type? ATTACK!!!
- No good targets? Attack whatever I can reach.

They'll generally always prioritize whatever is best for them individually as opposed to what's best for their team as a whole. This means they kamikaze into bad situations and also aggressively go after particular units if you're not careful. For example, a ranged unit getting RIGHT up next to your tank to attack the vulnerable archer behind. Why? Because that particular unit was good versus Leather and your Archer was the only Leather in your squad. Because of your team deployment, you were basically begging for that to happen. Recognizing that is important.
Sometimes, a very effective strategy to soak up hits to reduce the total team damage taken is to have two tanks of opposite armor types who can run a little ahead, meanwhile the rest of your squad is just out of the enemy's range.
Plate (slow, chunky) soaks up Cleaving, Crushing, Arcane, Holy.
Leather (dodgy, fast) soaks up Slashing, Projectile, Storm, Fire.

By having two "tanks" who run forward slightly a couple tiles, you can lure a group of enemies and spread out the damage, so even if something does go wrong, you're not going to die that turn. This then brings them into range of the rest of your squad safely who can then swoop in and start one-shotting stuff next turn. The goal of those tanks is NOT to kill everything! It's to counter-attack all that stuff to soften them up for your other units while simultaneously luring them into a trap, but we're also taking advantage of the computer's insistence on attacking specific typings to our advantage to spread out the damage safely.

Anyway, one of the things I want to point out about this playstyle is we're aggressively moving forward (with just our tanks that turn) and NOT turtling up. First time players often feel like they have to huddle as a squad and move forward as a unit, which is fine, but sometimes the end result is that your units will get attacked into the same way they would regardless of positioning because of your team make-up (like that archer example I gave earlier). This is particularly scary when you have several glass cannons to worry about, and having them get prioritized like that also increases the amount of total healing required. Just something to keep in mind. There's also times where you have to huddle up, (like defending a narrow hallway,) so you just want to be aware of your team as a whole.

Clerics can either lean hard damage, hard support, or somewhere in the middle. Generally, if you can manage it, it's best to attack with them that first turn at least, and only heal on subsequent turns or quickly between engagements. This is particularly true if you're using Acolytes as they actually hit pretty hard. So treating them as hard supports and not taking advantage of their fantastic damage is a mistake, especially when they can potentially one-shot certain match-ups.

You want to make sure you have enough healing for each squad. That means you need either a single healer on each who's self-sufficient (self-healing, lifesteal) or two healers who can heal each other if necessary, but that takes up more valuable slots.

Ideally what happens is you make smart decisions with your overall strategy that reduces the total amount of healing required in the first place. The tanks magneting stuff I talked about a moment ago ^ is a great example of this and allows your healers to be more aggressive. After all, if you have 2 more units who can attack each turn, even if their damage isn't the greatest, that all adds up and is often the difference between having 1 or 2 enemies gone in the first place. This is part of why you can get away with using Acolytes as your primary healers. It's less about them having appropriate levelings of healing, and more about you having an appropriate strategy with your squads deployment and positioning to reduce the amount of healing required in the first place, allowing your healers to prioritize damage instead.

If you have 6 enemies up ahead, you lure them into a trap, then immediately reduce them to 2 next turn, there's no reason for you to huddle up and you can easily kill them with whoever you want next turn, then heal whoever got attacked, regardless of what type of unit they are because the remaining foes just don't have enough damage to kill any of your guys off with what's leftover.

Looking pretty solid right now. Benji and Maren are the two most vulnerable. We need better Leather and (accurate) Rune coverage, also more ranged. We can have 5-7 units per squad.
This coverage is looking great. Also, it just sorta worked out that we have all Leather and Chain armor types here. That's actually pretty nice cause it means the damage will be pretty spread out. Because the team kinda worked out like that, I want to avoid adding a Plate or Rune because they'll magnet certain attack types like CRAZY. At the same time though, Alexa might have been slightly risky since she's Chain, which has that same problem. She's just such a powerhouse though, it's hard to go wrong with her.
Also, I just said I needed a ranged, then I added ANOTHER melee. So whatever I pick for the remaining flex slots ABSOLUTELY need to be ranged, and ideally, Leather or Chain. Maybe something that can kill Plate. Hmm...
Bianca & Maeve kill the dodgy stuff, but struggle against the beefy tanky units, which Benji and Monroe can handle instead.
I'm feeling really good about this team. We still have one more slot. Needs to be ranged. Ideally Leather/Chain since I'm apparently making a meme team. I'm kinda thinking a rogue or archer.
Storm is the magic version of Projectile by the way, same typings. There's the ranged unit I was looking for. Thunderlord is kinda underwhelming in general, but this provides even more flexibility for this team. Also, he has the Chain armor type so that Alexa isn't alone and doesn't get singled out by particular attack types. Because Thae'lanel doesn't have to worry about getting hit too much in a single turn, we can be very aggressive about his positioning, which is unusual for a TL, but also we can build him very offensively and safely. I'm overall pretty happy with how this turned out. Too much melee though, but Alexa, Bianca, Maeve, Benji and Monroe can all one-shot stuff, which reduces the amount of remaining things I have to worry about. This is a very roamy team that hunts down stuff and isn't afraid of retaliation. I need to be a little careful with Benji and Maren though, so probably smart to end their turns with them standing next to other units so they don't get surrounded. It'll probably be fine in general though.

Benji, Alexa and Maren have good DEF but low FOR, meaning they're scared of magic damage. Prioritize these enemies: Dodgy, accurate, magic users. Whatever's remaining CANNOT HURT ME. They literally either won't be able to hit me, or will do reduced damage, lowering the amount of healing required. Thae'lanel unfortunately will get hurt all the time if they target him, but he guaranteed will not die. This is kinda fine, I'm resigned to needing to heal him regularly. And if there's anything I am scared of, I can shut it down with his Chain ability if necessary.
Alternative for final slot. Will be Slashing while leveling, but becomes Projectile at final form. This is kind of an awkward fit while leveling because it's even MORE melee! But if you're using regular recruitment order, you get Wren pretty late in the campaign, so it's not like he's going to be Thief for long. Anyway, this makes a dodgy, assassin'y "archer" who also has support options.

I want to point out that Benji, Monroe, Thae'lanel and Maren are low accuracy. But that's fine because I have accurate units who have decent coverage for all of the enemy types. Benji and Monroe both hit SUPER hard, so they'll likely one-shot stuff every turn. Thae'lanel CAN one-shot stuff, but it's RNG based. These guys don't work against everything, but I don't need them to. What they ARE providing is exactly what I needed.

This team doesn't have "glass cannons" per say, but a lot of them are VERY hard hitters who will one-shot stuff. This reduces the amount of healing required and even if someone does get hit next turn, I can easily deal with it.

This class provides +40% accuracy to adjacent units and is also fairly dodgy. Not crazy dodgy, but decent. Their damage is "okay". This makes them a hybrid tank/plate killer/somewhat dodge killer, but more importantly, they provide accuracy to OTHER units. Meaning, you can have average accuracy on other squad mates, but then with careful positioning, use BOTH of these girls to enable the rest of your squad to kill anything else. This means you're locked in for your "tanks" but lots of flexibility regarding attack types to take out dodgy units, whether they be Leather/Chain/Rune. This is a hard counter to dodgy foes and also Plate (Because these girls are both Arcane).
All four of these units are fairly survivable and we now have enough survivability, healing and accuracy to deal with most problems. Acolytes can kinda, sorta tank if absolutely necessary, but it's not ideal. Kinda the same problem the Illusionists have really. I'm pleased that we currently have 4 Rune, that means the damage will be spread out so no single unit will get targeted down super hard and they all have decent levels of dodge. These two Acolytes have decent accuracy, but become fantastic accuracy next to these Illusionists.
Plate is OVER covered. Chain is... okay... We really need Leather and maybe slightly more Rune coverage. However, neither of those necessarily need to be high accuracy, medium accuracy is fine because we can use the Illusionist buff to bring it up to good levels. This opens up some options for us.
Also, we have so much ranged at this point! We need some melee who can soak up some hits and either be high defensive stats or dodgy.
I'm happy with Rune coverage. Need another Leather killer with at least medium accuracy, ideally tanky or at least a bruiser. Maaaaybe good versus Chain too to round out my coverage.
A glass cannon is a little scary choice, but he provides great coverage, and he can hide behind an Illusionist lass to have the accuracy he needs. Part of the thought here is: If I can take out accurate foes, I win.
Okay, I ABSOLUTELY need something tanky for the last slot. Medium accuracy is fine. Ideally Leather since I have so much Rune already (I'm a little worried about Caius getting focused down) and it needs to kill Leather and maybe Chain. Maybe a slashing? There's a few Warrior options but they're Plate. If I do go the Plate route, I need to make sure they're tanky enough so they don't get focused down either.
Because she's the only Plate, she'll magnet more attack types. This is actually a GOOD thing! She's so tanky that she won't die, and we can even be more aggressive and scooch her forward with an Illusionist BEHIND her, letting her soak up as much stuff as possible to soften up their entire team. This is a very strong combo.
Normally, I'd be a little scared of having a single unit of a particular armor type in a squad like this. You either want to spread it out or have multiple of each type, but in this case, that actually works out in our favor and provides good coverage at the same time.
Liberty will soften everything up, then she and the two Illusionists can use their average'ish damage to finish that stuff off, while the damage dealers can kill the remaining full health stuff. Try to plan out the Illusionists positions so that you can take advantage of their buff with Garrick in particular.

This is feeling like a really solid team. The duel Illusionists may be a bit much. I'm actually not sure if you can stack multiple accuracy buffs for +80% or not (I assume not), I was just trying to have a lot of flexibility. The scariest part here is Garrick, for sure. My recommendation would be to prioritize taking out enemy archers since they'll home in on his Leather and attack past your frontliners.
When moving forward with this team, try to attack with Illusionist diagonally, then your melee/Liberty can come up adjacent to the Illusionist and target in melee range to get the buff and attack into them, which also starts forming your wall for your squad's new position.

The Illusionists are a little scared of accurate stuff, so if you can take those out first, the remaining enemies will probably be okay. I'd say this team is most scared of accurate physical, in particular Projectile, Piercing and Slashing. So basically Archers, Duelists, Assassins, Thieves, Windrunners. Both Garrick and our arcane ladies want those taken care of ASAP. Once you do that, you can safely wall up and be aggressive the following turn. Just don't let Garrick become too exposed.

Lastly, you can use the Illusionists to teleport allies out of harms way or portal some enemies from behind a wall or something to pick off a few of them at a time. Abusing this can be quite strong and consider it when you're blockading a chokepoint to suck up units behind the enemy formation and put them in a vulnerable position where your squad can gang up on them. I'd especially recommend that if their frontline does no damage to you, but their rear units are a threat. This allows you to leave the low-threat units for later and let them take up valuable space for your benefit, but killing the high-threat targets immediately. Illusionists are pretty fantastic support units if you know how to use them well.

This is an interesting combo that takes care of our healing and provides some VERY solid frontliners. Vesta will be underwhelming damage-wise, but incredibly safe and will soak up SOOOO much damage for your team. Meanwhile Faust will make you laugh cause he'll melt things constantly while still being a solid healer.
More tankiness and a little utility + damage buff. Place him between Vesta and Faust. We have a very solid frontline and healing is taken care of. Because we have three different armor types in the front row, they'll magnet most attacks, meaning we can be more aggressive with our remaining slots. Time to throw in some raw damage. Also, we're severely lacking in accuracy at the moment.

Kill rune = Aurima, Faust
Kill plate = Vesta, Faust, Alden
Kill chain = Corvan, Alden, Rose
Kill leather = Corvan, Aurima, Rose

This team is feeling fairly solid right now. Three very tanky units and three hard hitters who are situationally flimsy. It's slightly awkward that our healers can only heal immediately adjacent targets, so whoever is ideally behind Corvan (our middle tank) can't be healed as easily without shuffling people around. That's the main awkward thing at the moment, or just being in an open area where enemies can swoop around. Remember that Corvan can Disarm the biggest threat each turn. Also remember that we have two healers who are average accuracy, and we can afford to have them healing each turn. So as long as there's not too many enemies remaining, you can afford to be very aggressive with your positioning and just heal with them each turn and ignore huddling up entirely (although Corvan & Faust passive auras are nice).
Our final flex slot can be whatever we like, so I'll just pick something I think sounds fun. Otherwise, someone who could potentially be a 4th frontliner to prevent our glass cannons from being flanked.

This team tries to have as much Plate and Chain as possible to provide more targets for enemies to choose from, evening out damage, then relies on the healing over time of Guardian to stay topped off for multiple turns. Vesta/Lincoln and Elias murder all the plate, Wren & Alexa try to take out all the magic damage, and basically the entire team has pretty high DEF so you're safe against what's left. The main thing we're missing is some really accurate units to hard counter rogues in particular. Lincoln wants to hang back a bit just in case. Ideally enemies focus on other Plate and they have several to choose from. Right now, we don't have any other healers in this particular group.

If you can build units that are really high DEF but low FOR, but you have enough units who can still one-shot magic users as a priority, this means everything that's left can't hurt you. Either they do absolutely nothing (due to high DEF or dodge) or they hurt some, which gets healed back by Vesta/Lincoln. After that, you can focus on all the dodgy stuff with your high accuracy units, meanwhile everyone else can attack whatever's ideal for them at the time. This team's playstyle is kind of about spreading out, roaming and killing whatever seems nice to them, they don't huddle together at all. They won't necessarily kill stuff quickly, but they're just so tanky! And the counter-attacks are real.

If you want to keep going with this same theme (plate/chain), a secondary Dragon Knight or Gladiator could be pretty good. I'll list a couple options, but you want to pick 2 of the following (or something like it)