Alright. I finished the story, got all characters, equipment and achievements.
I don't actually know what to write about so have a tier list of my thoughts on the characters and equipment in reverse order:
F tier: Nothing. Anything is better than nothing.
E tier: 1 star equipment. Only useful until you can get the higher tier spirit and artifacts.
D tier:
- Most 2 star equipment.
- Oldhar. The first character. If your team is dying you are doing something wrong. And deliberatly killing allies for an extra 12 damage does not seem worth it. The might buff is nice but overall too random to make use of it.
C tier:
- Most 3 star equipment and Might and Luck 2 star artifacts. I value dps stats higher than survivability items because there is no need to tank if there is no attacker.
- Yume. Early game she is fine but vs bosses she tends to be sub par as after the first sleep they usually get a 10 round sleep immunity.
- Amai. Interesting concept of creating items and using them but it costs 2 rounds to heal someone. Is a decent pairing with some 5 star artifacts.
- Mayu. Your first tank. Poison seems very weak around 5 damage? She is your first AoE character so you will be using her for a while.
B tier:
- 4 star spirits and 5 star artifacts. Well that looks strange doesn't it? But I find that many of the 5 star artifacts are worse than the 4 star artifacts. Some work well on especially healer characters while others are questionable like fiery gloves.
- Ayumu. Your first dps character. I mistakenly built her with a lot of agility but perhaps it is better to go full luck instead? Late game she falls off damage wise and becomes a tanky AGI buffer.
- Homura. Speaking of fiery gloves Homura is probably the only hero on which that item can work. But compared to just stacking might it will still fall behind. Burn seems to be like poison, very low damage. Maybe I just don't understand how she works, especially the matchstick mechanic. She is very tanky though and the 1.3 multiplier is quite good.
- Hime. She is very tanky but is a dps character? High crit chance and crit damage but on a 1.0 mutliplier but only one attack at 1.0 multiplier. Maybe I don't understand how she interacts with buffs but it seems like it doesn't increase much of her damage.
- Cathy. The only character in the game that can buff LUCK which is very strong with certain builds. However everytime I use her coin toss ability I get angry when it deals 0 damag. So no A tier for you.
- Harold. Very flexible character. Has AoE. Other than that has quite a bit of randomness to the damage/heal numbers but not by much. Low AGI though.
- Ennea. Tanky. Like Hime she ignores defense. I just can't think of a character with more than 5 defense.
- Aoi. Actually I haven't him much but from my limited playtesting he seems to be ok.
A tier:
- Most of the 5 star spirits and 4 star artifacts. Here again why 4 star artifacts are better. Radiant Defense Shard is + 5 Defense. Cement clogs is +7 but also -4 Agility. Can work on healers, but buffers and dps need that agility. The spirits don't have that problem except if you compare spirit of Harold to Immortal Lightning Spirit with 15% and 20% chance to paralyze. Though Spirit of Harold makes up for it with 4 stat points.
- Santa Claws. Can buff AGI and Might at the same time. Can heal and reduces debuff duration by 1. Naughty list is a straight up 12% damage increase. Very good.
- Jolanda. Quite strong for a tank character. AoE is very useful.
- Akane. The captain falcon of the roster. Has the highest damaging move in the roster (3 * 1.0) but it takes time to setup and costs sanity. But alternatively you can use her as a might buffer that lasts 5 rounds!
S tier:
- Coal and Gold Coin Spirit and Might and Luck 4 star artifacts. The faster you kill the faster you can pull more gacha.
- Midori. While she doesn't actually help you kill faster she is arguably the most important character in the story. You get her early and she will be your main source of CC and heals until you can one shot stuff. But even in the late game, since her heal is AoE she still has relevance.
- Seassa. You can build her with Might to get a consistent amount of damage out of her, or you can build her with Luck and one-turn the 6-3 boss every 5 attempts. Her AoE is terrible though. One stack needs to hit 4 enemies to be roughly equivalent in damage to simply using knife barrage twice. And at 0.6 the multiplier is not worth it. You are better off using super speed and usign knife barrage twice on the tankiest target and watch it melt. although the mutliplier is only 0.3 for up 3 to 5 hits, if it crits it can do 40 + damage. More so if you use Cathy's buffs with the buff from Gold coin.
- Yumi. Similarily to Hime she gets a buff to increase her crit chance. Unlike Hime she gets three attacking skills. Four if you count the weakend version. A normal attack at 1.0, a stronger attack at 1.4 and a AoE at 1.3 or 1.0. 1.4 is a lot. Yes compared to Akane's 3 it is not that much but Akane's is actually closer to 1.5 due to setup requirements. In fact the other damage mutlipliers that come close when taking setup into account are Seassa if she hits 5(1.5), Homura (1.3 + burn), Jolanda, Santa Claws and Harold if they attack twice(2.0) and Cathy if she hits at all (2.0).
My party for farming 6-3 as I believe it to be the best time/rewards ratio:
Cathy, buffs Seassa
Ayumu, deal ~150 damage to the egg.
Jolanda, I just need an AoE that is not as slow as Harold.
Seassa, instant burst on the big Legion. On average I get 3 crits with super speed and knife barrage but it can get it low enough occasionaly for Yumi.
Yumi, big AoE in Round 1. Often times 60+ damage with arrow to finish off the boss.
2 Rounds needed. Rarely 3 if Seassa doesn't crit.