These dangerous enemies will do anything to spike the difficulty of any stage, and usually need specific tactics to be taken down. If any doctor doesn't happen to have any operators or any plans capable to deal with these, the stages they appear in will quickly become That One Level.
Main Story and Associated
- In general, large and tough enemies like Defenders, Loggers, and Armed Militants can be very annoying to kill. Due to their beefy HP pools, high ATK, and sturdy armor, most of the time they'll be perfectly able to just wade through heavy fire and smack down your defensive operators in a few hits. Them being slow is highly deceptive, as they can just disregard everything between them and their goal. They will start appearing in large numbers around mid-Chapter 1, and all over the place in Supply missions, so unless you got lucky with the gacha and managed to recruit a few powerful Casters or the much rarer Arts-damage Guards, you're gonna have an extremely bad time taking them down. They're also particularly problematic in high-risk Contingency Contracts, since their high base stats allow them to take advantage of all the stat inflation going around.
- Casters as a whole tend to fall into this. Unlike the majority of enemy units, they deal Arts damage that can bypass the DEF of operators. While it's blocked by RES, the vast majority of operators have no resistance at all, while the ones that do will have 25 at maximum (out of a potential 100) along with usually having low HP from being a Caster or Supporter. On top of that, while there are many DEF buffs available to operators, there are extremely few RES buffs, and even fewer that actually have a noticeable effect. This means that they're going to be dealing heavy, unmitigated damage to just about all your units, and most of your Defenders will comparatively melt trying to tank them. They also outrange many Snipers unless engaged from max range, making it so that engaging them also puts your own units within their casting range as well. Even worse, most of them aren't squishy note , so however you deal with them, it will probably take a while. They also come in a variety of annoying variations:
- Senior Casters not only have significant amounts of HP, their attacks do AoE damage to all operators adjacent to the target, allowing them to blast apart groups of operators at a time. While this can be mitigated by spacing operators apart, there are many maps that simply don't allow for that, meaning you just have to pile up healing and hope your lineup can take it. There's also a Shielded variant which has higher HP/ATK and significantly boosted DEF, although their RES is lower to compensate.
- Invisible Casters can't even be shot down until revealed or blocked, before which they will snipe your units with their ranged Arts. Worse still, some are programmed to stay still outside your units' range, where they will gleefully rain Arts attacks on your helpless units unless they happen to stand on bushes (which are very sparingly spread out if they are on stages, and there are some where these tiles are entirely absent).
- Sarkaz Casters, special casters with a large HP pool, colossal attack power, and a potentially devastating ability where they can paralyze one of your operators while dealing massive Arts damage over time. Paralyzed operators can neither attack, use abilities, nor block enemies; which means even a lone Sarkaz Caster has the potential to collapse your entire defensive line, more so in groups. The only effective way to counterplay them is to deploy a decoy operator to force them use their paralyze ability early, since they can only use it once.
- Spec Ops Casters wear armor which increases their DEF, meaning that they have surprisingly sturdy defenses on both sides of the spectrum. The Leaders are even able to hit two targets at once to cause serious harm to your lineup. These Casters notably start replacing the majority of standard ones from Chapter 5 onwards.
- Yeti Casters (and the stronger Yeti Caster Leaders) from Chapter 6. Not only do they pack significant stats, but they can chill, or even outright freeze, your operators every third attack. Considering they always come with other Yeti Squadron troops (which can apply more chill effects or inflict severe damage to frozen operators), they can easily collapse a defensive line if they're backed up. Better hope your Medics have some kind of CC reduction handy.
- Break the Ice also introduces Icefield Casters, who are essentially Yeti Casters with lower ATK but the ability to target two units at once, on top of having status resistance which makes them very difficult to disable.
- Chapter 8 adds Ursus Armored Casters, which are like Spec Ops Casters but with higher stats and as their name suggests, a LOT more defense. Thankfully, their Leader variation does not target two operators at once.
- Tiacauh Ritualists from Gavial: The Great Chief Returns. They've got more HP than you'd expect from a Caster on top of extraordinary Arts resistance, and they also boast above-average range. Unlike other casters, however, trying to block them will cause them to gain a large amount of defense and let them use melee attacks with quadruple their usual attack power, which can easily destroy units that would normally be a fine choice to duel other casters, leaving gunning them down with ranged physical damage as the only real option. They also tend to enter and hang around on the map on areas you can't deploy on, leaving you to wait for them to stop loitering around and start moving towards your frontline. The kicker is, that in contrast to most other Casters, Ritualists are slower than a tired snail, moving about two steps before dishing out an attack and then repeating the cycle. This forces you to just endure their damage until they hobble in range of your Operators, which usually necessitates multiple Medics.
- The Howling Desert map, which was introduced in CC#6 not only lets them enter them from a point where most operators won't be able to reach them without being vulnerable to the sandstorm, but also buffs them with even more range and invisibility, basically neutering the operators that even could reach them, which are a small handful anyway. This also forces you to block them (guaranteeing their trait, similarly to blocking Pompeii) or remove their invisibility with options that can be counted on one hand. On top of all this, the map puts you on a timer by ensuring that the sandstorm will eventually wear away the pillars that shelter your squad from its wrath, giving you incentive to finish the battle quickly before your cover collapses and exposes you to the elements.
- The Tidal Casters from Dossoles Holiday have the AoE properties of Senior Casters with a significantly faster attack speed and the added ability to deal large amounts of Corrosion Damage, which will rapidly build up to deal enormous physical damage and permanently lower the DEF of your units, making them vulnerable to nearby physical enemies or even further bursts of Corrosion. They can also be found on Speedboats that let them traverse on water, give them massively inflated HP, and increase their range to the point where they can snipe your units with impunity.
- Dublinn Evocators from Chapter 9 possess huge amounts of HP and the ability to spawn Purifying Flames that travel along their movement paths before exploding on impact with a melee unit. The flames deal massive amounts of Arts damage in a wide area and, most damningly, inflict equal amounts of Burn damage. Because of how hard the attacks hit for, an Evocator can fully fill a group of Operators' Burn meters in 2 or 3 hits if you don't have a Wandering Medic working overtime, upon which you can expect a Total Party Kill due to the 1200 Arts damage on top of the damage the explosion already caused; their disturbingly wide area of effect in particular makes them incredibly good at collapsing defenses at chokepoints. Their only saving grace is that the fireballs will lose damage as they travel, but this also comes at the cost of forcing the player to build their defense as far as possible from the Evocators, something that may be disadvantageous against the other enemies and may also fall apart once the Evocators start actually moving closer to the blue box.
- Chapter 10 features the Sarkaz Heirbearer Chain Casters, which have very high stats for a Caster enemy and the unique ability for their attacks to chain through up to four targets, while also inflicting Necrosis damage. Even though their attacks will deal reduced damage per bounce, they're still incredibly troublesome for tightly packed formations because of their high damage output, coupled with the mass Necrosis they can inflict which will sap away the victims' SP and deal additional damage over time if it fills up, rendering entire groups of units helpless.
- Sandcastle Builders, from Ideal City, have some of the longest range of caster enemies, and attack quickly, allowing them to constantly pelt your operators with Arts damage, despite their low base ATK.
- Shanhaizhong Seers and Oracles from Where Vernal Winds Will Never Blow are classified as Elite enemies for a good reason: they are very, very capable of burst killing your operators very quickly. They have a Charged Attack that takes 5 seconds to charge, but then unleashes a blast that deals double damage, before increasing their ASPD by 100 for 20 seconds. Their high HP and surprisingly decent range is the icing on the top, as it means that it isn't easy to stop them before they use said attack, which will instantly turn them into killing machines that will more often than not absolutely destroy every allied unit in their attack range.
- Fashion Street Stellar Casters and Supernova Casters from So Long, Adele are somewhat unassuming in the normal maps, but can quickly become a terror in the harder maps or cause a blunder to spiral out of control. They have unusually long range and a decent attack rate balanced by a moderate ATK, but with the ability to target three allies simultaneously when standing on Carmine Steam. Almost every other enemy in the event has a way to spread large amounts of Carmine Steam, and some of the later stages in the event will also greatly limit your ability to stop them or spread Pure White Steam to counteract it. A Stellar Caster buffed by the Steam is capable of shockingly high damage output to entire groups of Operators from halfway across the map, and they tend to come in decently sized groups to maximize their firepower and let them melt through even bulky party members; if your Operators are standing on Carmine Steam themselves and can't cleanse it fast enough, the Stellar Casters will have their damage output increased by a further 50%, likely causing a Total Party Wipe in seconds. They're also somewhat bulky for a caster and can benefit from the 75% damage reduction when standing in Carmine Steam, which on top of their aforementioned range can make them difficult to kill, especially if they loiter out of range or on undeployable/pink tiles.
- Infused Originium Slugs, some quite literal demonic spiders. These things are rather weak damage-wise, but the catch is that they also freaking explode when they die, dealing great splash damage to all operators near them. While melee operators can often tank the hit, nearby ranged operators usually aren't as lucky, with the blast almost always mortally injuring them, if not instantly killing them. And they don't just come in singles or duos, either, so the typical strategy in maps with them is just to throw operators one after another at them like We Have Reserves, hoping that they can take out or weaken enough of these things before they reach the main lineup and blow everyone to smithereens. However, Lappland can prevent them from exploding with her innate talent, making them a joke if you happen to have her. Jaye can also do this with his first skill, and his talent lets him cut those bugs down quite fast all the while without losing health. Without any of those options, though, you better hope they're positioned far enough so that ranged operators who can reach them won't be hit.
- Chapter 6 adds Infused Glacial Originium Slugs, which do less damage but can also freeze all nearby operators caught in their blast to completely disable them. Their true danger comes not from their explosions, however, but the freeze that they inflict, which allows nearby Yeti Squad enemies to deal disturbing amounts of damage to your operators, most notably the Icecleavers and Casters. They also commonly come in groups, meaning that they will most certainly directly Freeze your operators, and if they happen to explode on your defenses, then you're essentially rendered a sitting duck for an annoying ten seconds.
- Breakers. They have a fair amount of attack, but also have good HP and extremely fast movement speed. Breakers can and will rush you down the second they appear, which is especially damning if they show up early on when your defensive line isn't fully formed. The worst part about them is that the game loves to Zerg Rush you with them, and swarms of Breakers can easily cause leaks by overwhelming defenders, or killing weaker units outright.
- Avengers, especially the red Hateful Avengers, are basically the game's counterpart to the Newspaper Zombies from Plants vs. Zombies. They have deceptively low offensive power, however once they hit half health, they get a massive boost in damage and attack speed that can rip apart your Defenders even faster than the Logger type enemies! And they are very common for how quickly they can destroy your frontline, responsible for much of the difficulty for Annihilation 2 because you have to deal with many Avengers towards the end of the stage, where they are accompanied by, guess what, Caster Leaders.
- They're also responsible for the vast majority of losses in Contingency Contract's Area 59 Ruins, as not only do they have incredible offensive buffs from the Active Originium tile they pass over on top of the global CC enemy buffs, there are specific contracts (Blade Breaker) that massively increase the HP, ATK, and DEF of both Avengers and Hateful Avengers - at that point, their attacks are basically One Hit Kills on practically everything you can put in front of them. Nothing will survive them for long except for anyone with some kind of invincibility like Specter.
- If that wasn't enough, they returned in Deserted Factory, the permanent map of Operation Blade, where they have two different but even deadlier contracts to beef them up. Vengeful Blade massively buffs up their HP, ASPD, and DEF while making their ability trigger earlier (making it permanently active at level 3), while Bloodthirsty Blade buffs their ATK instead of ASPD and massively increases the potency of their Turns Red ability. Either way, they're going to be cutting down your units with impunity while shrugging off everything - and to make things worse, both contracts also increase their weight so that the Specialist stall strategy used against them in Area 59 is a lot harder to pull off. It's bad enough that it's often joked that the theme song for the CC is actually singing their praises, and how they can mow down your defense line if you slip up.
- Arts Guards are even worse than the casters, despite being melee. They have too much HP to get assassinated quickly, and their high Arts damage ensures they will deal extreme damage with every strike, bypassing the heavy DEF of most defenders to rip through them. On top of that, they have much higher RES than most melee enemies, which can spell trouble if you've been relying on Casters. Most guides simply tell you to kill em' quick before they get within range of your defenders, and there are some situations where you can push or pull them into a Bottomless Pit.
- Obsidian Festival also introduces Agents. Statwise, they're faster, tankier, and slightly less damaging versions of the Arts Guards, but they have an additional talent which lets them reduce the block count of any operator they hit - and a single Agent can permanently debuff a target with this thanks to its lengthy duration and their rapid attack speed. While they're relatively strong in combat, this ability makes them even more of a nusiance, as they can debuff your defenders and allow enemies to leak through your defenses. It's especially damning with single-block units, since they will now have no blocking power whatsoever.
- Darknights Memoir adds Sarkaz Bladeweavers to the list of Arts Guards derivatives. Not much to say except that they're bulkier, more damaging, and much faster versions of the Arts Guards, although they'll only become hostile when attacked or signaled by a Sarkaz Sentinel.
- Icefield Arts Fighters in Break the Ice boast higher stats than regular Arts Guards (particularly much higher ATK) that let them cut down your units with impunity, and have a nasty Taking You with Me attack where they'll blow themselves up when killed, dealing massive Arts damage and inflicting Cold in a radius, letting it kill or cripple your entire defensive line if you kill them too close to your units. On the bright side, their death explosion also affects enemies, and they have a particular weakness to being shifted as it will cause them to take a massive amount of damage.
- Lone Trail has Arc Frontliners, effectively Reunion Arts Guards with more DEF and a lot more HP and ATK, making them more capable of slicing up your units in a snap or just walking through suppressive fire, especially since they tend to come in groups. Fortunately, they share the Icefield Arts Fighter's weakness to shifting, and the event maps offer Planetary Debris to send them flying around if you can control them.
- Hortus de Escapismo features Bounty Hunter Disruptors, which have higher HP, DEF, and ATK stats than regular Arts Guards. Additionally, they have a passive ability to reduce the DP cap by 10 and it can keep stacking additively for every Bounty Hunter Disruptor in the map, making it harder to deploy operators when combined with the other DP-stealing enemies in the event and outright preventing higher DP operators from being deployed unless they're taken down. The DP cap reduction is compounded by the event's tendency to spawn several Bounty Hunter Disruptors at the beginning of a stage. Thankfully, plenty of stages with Bounty Hunter Disruptors have them standing on top of planks that can be destroyed by exploiting the boulders to drop the Disruptors into holes.
- The final node of Chapter 5 introduces an especially annoying enemy type: Defense Crushers: They are basically weaker Palette Swaps of Big Bob but are armed with huge sledgehammers. While they have very high HP, ATK and DEF, they're fairly slow and have 0 Arts resist. However, their true means of screwing with you is the fact that every third hit of theirs (signified by their hammer glowing red) delivers a guaranteed stun to your operators for about seven seconds, during which they cannot attack or block, allowing these Crushers and other enemies through. They can then just rinse and repeat to stun your inner defenders as well, and then saunter casually into your base. Really, the best advice against these guys is to just try to kill them with Arts damage before they move, as their advance is tied to the number of mooks you've defeated. Unless you have Lappland or Jaye, of course, in which case they become an utter joke.
- Ditto as well towards the Dockworkers of Dossoles Holiday, who are effectively reskinned Defense Crushers with similar stats (albeit stunning every 4 hits instead of 3) and the same susceptibility towards the Silence status effect, along with a severe vulnerability to being submerged in water.
- Sarkaz Heirbearer Punishers from Episode 13 boast even higher stats than the usual Crushers (with a normal Punisher having comparable stats to a Crusher Leader), but can throw you for a loop due to their defenses being reversed in comparison, with fairly high RES and a much lower DEF. In addition, although their stun only triggers every 4 attacks instead of 3, it's now an area attack that can crush and stun an entire group of units at once.
- Demolitionists are cousins of the aforementioned Defense Crushers that trade their ability to stun for the ability to deal splash damage in the adjacent tiles to anything they hit. While they have slightly less DEF than a Crusher, they pack higher HP and absurdly high ATK that lets them kill even Defenders in a few hits, much less any ranged operators caught in the blast even taking into account their 50% ATK reduction on their splash damage.
- Episode 12 introduces the Sarkaz Absurdist Tyrants, similar units who also have the benefit of counting as 3 units while blocked, making it harder to stop their advance. Although they have less ATK and their splash damage only works on their first attack, their area attack not only doesn't have an ATK penalty, but actually increases their ATK by 50% instead, letting them flatten an entire group of operators in a snap.
- Arts Master Drones, particularly the stronger A2 version. These things deal very high arts damage at long range, while packing decent health and massive arts resistance to make sure they don't go down easily. Their high arts damage means that most ranged operators will die very quickly against them and they can bypass DEF to punch holes through Defenders as well. The A2 variant in particular has a gigantic amount of HP, disturbingly long range, and enough attack power to cut down most operators in a few shots at best. If you can't kill them quickly, they can and will wreck your entire backline. The A2 Drones and the Defense Crushers are almost always responsible for your loss in Annihilation 3.
- Chapter 6 introduces the Enraged Possessed Soldiers. Not much to say about them except they are a textbook Lightning Bruiser - packing high HP, average DEF, good RES, fast speed, and extremely high ATK with a fast attack rate. A single one of these guys can handily collapse an unprepared defensive line with the sheer damage they can put out, while their high HP allows them to shrug off fire and rush straight at your defenders. The Enraged Possessed Leaders are even worse - their already high attack power is almost doubled and they have even more HPnote , making them even harder to kill while letting them cut through even sturdy Defenders like butter. Most of the time, the only real strategy to deal with them is to use ranged units to stall and kill them before they reach your lines, because there are no Operators in the game that can withstand a sustained attack from these monsters. The only saving grace is that they take constant Damage Over Time from their infection, and they're often programmed to stand still for a bit to allow the self-damage to build up before they engage, but good luck if the game decides to send some charging straight at you.
- Contingency Contract offers a few more ways to make them and their Thrower cohorts even more hellish with the Cellular Regeneration contract to boost their ASPD and negate their life drain, or Infection Hyperplasia to make their stats even higher at the cost of increasing their HP loss (which is a moot point considering their HP is much higher as a result).
- Enraged Possessed Throwers, introduced in Episode 6. They are rather tough, with average DEF, but high HP, ATK, and RES, with the latter negating Arts damage as an effective counter against them. When they move within range of an operator, they will completely stop moving and will throw the Originium crystals lodged in their bodies at their target; unlike most other ranged enemy units, who would advance for a short distance before attacking again, Enraged Possessed Throwers will stay where they are, repeating their attacks until either they or their target is killed. While your ranged units can trade blows with them, your melee units (barring ranged Guards) are out of luck, not being able to do anything about it other than tanking their hits, which hit incredibly hard and can kill just about any non-Defender in a few to a couple of hits even with support from a Medic. A minor saving grace is that these guys are Living on Borrowed Time, so they will drop dead eventually after pelting at your units for long enough. The stronger Enraged Possessed Bonethrower has increased HP and ATK, making it even harder to stall.
- If they are buffed via the Cellular Regeneration contract (which increases their ASPD and eliminates their passive HP decay) in Contingency Contract's New Street map, it is very common for them to start stacking up in very large numbers, allowing them to take down the hardiest of Defenders even with heavy Medic support.
- That being said, should you have a reasonably-upgraded Hoshiguma, you can simply equip her S2 and park her somewhere within their range, an additional healer recommended, and watch as they (slowly) pelt themselves to death from the backlash damage. In certain challenge maps where they either have significantly buffed stats or no longer expire naturally, this can go on for several minutes at the least, and their special targeting quirk means they can't stop attacking her and hurting themselves even if they wanted to.
- Yeti Icecleavers pack a lot of HP, highly damaging attacks, and surprisingly sturdy defenses. However, their real power lies in their ability to deal 250% damage to any frozen operators they hit. Not only is this a fairly common occurrence, since they always come with many freeze-inducing units, their damage output skyrockets if they can get their hands on a frozen unit, often enough to kill most operators in two hits at most. The Leader variants are even worse due to their significantly higher stats and their damage boost being buffed to 300% - they have been known to One-Hit Kill frozen defenders if they are able to get an attack in.
- Break the Ice also has the Icefield Berserkers, who share the same high HP, ATK, and DEF as the Icecleavers but have status resistance to make them highly resistant to the event's mechanics. Fortunately, although their DEF is higher, their HP and ATK are lower than said Icecleavers, and so is their multiplier against frozen targets.
- Guerilla Shieldguards initially assume the role of a Stone Wall much like Heavy Defenders, but exaggerate it with their enhanced set of stats and skills. They have a large amount of HP and massive amounts of DEF as per the norm, but they also have a whopping 60% Arts Resistance, which is higher than most Caster enemies. This gives them insane bulk, especially if they're a leader variant - the usual idea of Arts being their Achilles' Heel goes out the window, since they'll now be able to shrug off magical assaults, while physical attacks will still be barely able to scratch them. The worst part is that they have a passive that lets them Draw Aggro and force all Operators to target themselves over any other enemy, which means that they can stroll in, draw fire from everything in the vicinity, and use their bulk to withstand the attack while their likely-more-damaging cohorts walk in unimpeded and go to town. And if you're on a level that sends a large group of them at you simultaneously, you best hope you've got some nuclear AoE attacks or debuffs primed, otherwise taking them out will be no easy feat.
- Imperial Strikers are Mighty Glaciers with very high stats all across the board, as well as the ability to use weaker ranged attacks at a distance. However, their true threat arises when they're brought below 50% HP, as they'll have their ATK doubled. In this state, even their ranged attacks will be able to inflict heavy damage, and anything that gets into melee combat with them is basically dead unless they're a high-level Defender with Medic support. Bursting them down will solve this problem, but that's easier said than done given their significant bulk.
- Imperial Artillery Targeteers and their stronger Core Targeteer variants, introduced in Episode 8. Not only do they have some of the highest stats seen on an aerial target so far, they have annoyingly large range, often making it impossible to snipe them down safely. The artillery strikes they call in to attack deal colossal amounts of physical damage and splash damage to nearby units, letting them cripple even the hardiest of defenses and outright flatten squishies caught in the blasts. Worse, they don't go down easily either, as they have massive amounts of HP and surprisingly high mixed defenses, necessitating concentrated DPS no matter physical or Arts - and even then, since they're flying enemies, most of the units in the game won't even be able to attack them. And just to proverbially flip you off, if they happen to call in an artillery strike moments before they die, it will still land, potentially dooming the target and anyone happen to be standing close by. These are also programmed to roam around the map before going straight to the Protection Objective; while this gives you more time to dispatch them, it also gives them more time to dismantle your units while they're occupied by other enemies, or attack the allied Ursus Civilians/Talulah the Fighter to cause an outright loss if you're not careful. In particular, this trait also makes it so that operators who do not prioritize aerial units will not prioritize it, as it technically takes the longest to get to the blue box. Thankfully, these drones rarely appear in large numbers, but when they do, expect the spend a lot of the map trying to keep your units out of harm's way while dealing with them in a timely manner.
- Tombkeeper Grotesques introduced in Episode 9 initially appear to be a textbook Mighty Glacier, albeit with Refraction that reduces the effectiveness of Arts. However, when you kill them, they'll go into a brief hibernation period before reviving as a flying unit with ranged Arts attacks. The main problem is that they still retain their significant bulk and attack power while being unable to be blocked or hit by ground units, and many ranged units cannot shoot them down in time before they make a beeline straight for the blue box, often deviating from their own pathing to do so. Destroying the Grotesque in its hibernating state will stop it from reviving, but good luck when said state heavily buffs their defenses. Fortunately, they have a glaring weakness to Tattered Pillars, which will instantly kill them and stop them from reviving, but their limited availability makes this weakness unreliable.
- Episode 9 also introduces the Dublinn Companion Shadowblades and Companion Guards. The former is a stealthed melee Arts unit whose high HP makes up for its low defenses, while the latter is a Mighty Glacier with exceptionally high stats all around and the ability to Draw Aggro. However, if they're within a certain radius of each other, their special abilities activate - the Shadowblade's attack speed will be more than doubled, letting them slice your Defenders into ribbons, while the Guard will put up a force field that significantly reduces the ASPD of all units within range. This turns them from an average threat into an extremely dangerous pair - the Shadowblade deals massive damage and cannot be gunned down beforehand due to its stealth, and the Guard's ASPD debuff neuters your DPS units while its increased aggro makes it nigh impossible to target the much more fragile Shadowblade even if you block it. Killing them early one at a time solves this problem, but this is complicated by the fact that they rarely come without their partner and will usually take a pathing that makes them pair up as fast as possible.
- Sarkaz Heirbearer Hatedrinkers and Wrathgorgers are elite melee units with tremendously high stats and the ability to increase their ATK for every Reborn Creation currently on the field. Not only is their base ATK already extremely high, the Reborn Creations and the Heirbearers that spawn them will frequently appear in swarms, and there can easily be over a dozen Reborn units active at any given moment in time. Given how hard it is to kill Reborns without the Londinium Cannon, it can be hard to thin their numbers before the Hatedrinkers reach your front lines and start dishing out One Hit Kills with impunity.
- Rotchasers from Chapter 11 throw everything out the window when it comes to hound-type enemies, because instead of being Fragile Speedsters, they're full-on Lightning Bruisers with extremely large amounts of health (having more health than most of the chapter's Machina) that makes their low defenses a non-issue, very punishing attacks that hit fairly quickly, and the ability to inflict an Arts Damage Over Time that will melt through most unattended units if they don't have constant healing support. They come alarmingly early and frequently for something that fast and tough too, so you'd best hope you can shore up a defense by then.
- Londinium Mobile Defense Artillery will likely be the source of much of the rage in Chapter 11. They're extremely tanky siege units that are nigh impervious to physical damage, and have a long-ranged missile attack that can hit targets from an alarming distance away, along with a special attack where they'll lock on to the highest HP target in range with an Arts missile barrage. This barrage in particular deals enough damage to obliterate just about anything that takes the full brunt of it, even under the likes of a Nightingale buff, albeit with the damage being spread out if you group enough units close together. Only Lin can tank these enemies reliably, and even then only if she is fully raised with an expensive module equipped. The main problem arises when they start to show up in groups, showering you in missiles from across the map in a quantity that even grouped healing balls may struggle against, while still engaging from a range where most units that can actually hurt them won't be able to reach.
- Episode 12 brings out the Trilby Ashers, who live up to their reputation as the Duke of Caster's personal Elite Mooks. Each one has an extreme amount of ATK that lets them One-Hit Kill melee units not built for defense while punching holes in everything else, and their enormous HP gives them massive bulk in spite of their surprisingly middling defenses. The trainee Shadowing Trilby Ashers are already pieces of work, especially considering that they start to show up in concerningly large groups later on, but a fully-fledged Trilby Asher is a borderline boss-tier threat.note To make matters even worse, even if the target can survive their onslaught, Trilby Ashers have a Crownslayer-like Flash Step which is used every third attack, effectively forcing you to chew through their massive bulk from range before they either slaughter everything in their path or bypass your defense altogether. It's even worse if your defense is too close to the exit, as there's now nothing stopping them from dashing directly into the blue box without even giving you a chance to block them again.
- Withering and Decaying Collector Disciples from Episode 12 are tremendously bulky aerial units that don't attack by themselves, but instead act as Mook Makers for Seeds of Withering/Decay respectively. The Seeds are fragile but pack an immense punch with their Suicide Attack, and the Disciples will gleefully spawn hordes of these things directly on top of your units, not even giving you time to shoot them down before they hurl themselves into a target. On top of that, the Disciples spawn their Seeds at an alarming rate of 3 every 10 seconds, letting them easily overwhelm even physically defensive units, especially if there are multiple active at once. The obvious solution is to take them out as soon as possible, but they tend to spawn in hard-to-reach places where they'll build up a small army of Seeds before even floating in range of your defense, not to mention that shooting them down is easier said than done due to their titanic HP and spawned minions both taking aggro for them and making it unsafe for most shorter-ranged DPS units.
- Sarkaz Boneguards from Episode 13 are an upgraded version of the usual Heavy Defender type enemies, sharing the usual statline of beefy HP, ATK and DEF offset by low RES. However, what makes them more of a pain is that they not only have passive taunt, they also inflict a lingering -40 ASPD debuff to anyone that attacks them, which lasts long enough to permanently debuff attackers. This is a nasty combination, as anyone in range will be forced to attack them, but attackers will be severely crippled, letting them draw severe punishment away from their allies and exacerbating their bulk to the point where they can heavily resist even heavy Arts bombardment. The taunt is also a problem as it overrides that of the bombs that need to be delivered to Bloodcalling Altars to stem the flow of enemies, which can result in your units being forced to waste their attacks on it instead of pushing the bomb. On top of this, they can physically obstruct the bomb to make pushing it not just practically impossible, but literally impossible as long as they're present, which is particularly painful as they generally take pathing designed to get in the way of bomb routes, if they aren't just pre-spawned there to begin with.
- Sarkaz Boneguard Flayers, also from Episode 13, are very sturdy and hard-hitting elites capable of both melee and ranged attacks, whose threat is massively compounded by their unique ability to heal 15% of their HP and permanently gain +10% ATK (up to +150%) every time any unit dies or retreats within a tile of them. The problem arises with Episode 13's emphasis on massive respawning enemy hordes, giving the Flayer a nigh continous stream of fuel to constantly heal themselves and buff their ATK to kingdom come, making them nearly unstoppable once they hit their stride, especially since every operator they knock out will result in them healing off most of the damage done and becoming even stronger. This is especially painful with helidrops or other assasination units, since if they can't do enough damage in their lifetime (which is likely if the Flayer has enough buffs under its belt to one or two shot them), then they'll just end up doing less than zero damage. Furthermore, they're subject to Loophole Abuse where their ability activates when a target leaves the map and not necessarily when they're killed, resulting in them gaining power off of unconventional things like Blood Ambers being merely revived or picked up, or even when a bomb or other self-destructing unit is detonated near them.
Events
- Rockbreakers from Heart of Surging Flame are very hard-hitting foes that throw everything out the window on stopping large enemies due to their extremely high Arts resist, which doubles if they are blocked. They can reach 80% resist (90% if it's a leader), which is even more than most Casters and makes your magic units deal Scratch Damage to them. The enemies with more resist can be counted on one hand. Their main weakness is their pitiful defense, but their massive health and tendency to come in groups can help circumvent this. Then comes their appearance in Contingency Contract's Broken Path stage, where the Stone Breaker contracts jack up their HP/ATK, give them enough DEF to easily circumvent their physical frailty, and gives them invisibility on top of that, which combines with any other contracts you have to turn them into nigh-invincible juggernauts.
- Bullies (and the elite Bulldozer variant) in the Code of Brawl event are Lightning Bruisers with significant HP, very high ATK and DEF, and a somewhat below average RES. However, what makes them difficult is that they count as 3 enemies when it comes to blocking, meaning that most units won't even be able to stop their charge (possibly letting them slip through unopposed), while most defenders will become fully occupied while blocking them (possibly letting enemies slip though). And even if you can block one, their high stats mean that they will probably deliver massive amounts of damage to your operators before finally being put down. Moreover, there's a daily Contingency Contract stage that spawns both an Elite version of them and a modifier that bans Defenders and Guards, making them even harder to exterminate. Fortunately, the game is usually merciful enough to make them programmed to loop around the stage a few times before rushing into the exit, giving you some time to whittle them down. Mostima and her time-stopping S2 is a godsend when fighting them.
- Code of Brawl also introduces Fanatics. Statwise, they're just Mighty Glacier type enemies with good HP, high ATK/DEF, and no RES. However, what sets them apart is that their attacks have an extended range which allows them to hit operators stationed on ranged tiles - with their high ATK, most ranged operators will likely only survive two hits at most. With this ability, they can take swings at your ranged units to cripple your defenses while they advance, and their ATK is high enough to bring the hurt to bulky units as well. And the icing on the cake is that they prioritize Command Terminals over operators and deal bonus damage to them - since losing a Command Terminal is the same as losing a life, these things can be the bane of your existence if going for a perfect run - especially during if you're trying to complete a challenge involving not upgrading any of the Command Terminals.
- Joining from the Code of Brawl event are Greytails. While their stats may seem average, what makes them bothersome Mighty Glaciers to deal with is that they are protected by a sand shield that blocks a certain amount of Arts damage and greatly increases their defense to the point where they become borderline immune to physical damage while it's up. To exacerbate the issue further, they also boast disturbingly high attack power meaning your blocking operators will likely drop dead without decent Medic support. Fortunately, their shield does not protect against Arts damage, so use that to take them down faster. Once their shield breaks from repeated attacks, they become Fragile Speedsters, trading bulkiness for faster movement, though this buff is negated if blocked, in which they become pushovers in combat, dying in a few to couple hits. Do note that one particular Greytail Leader in the level CB-EX4 has his route placed on tiles where melee operators cannot block his advance, so be ready to deploy Casters and slow-type Supporters to stop him ASAP.
- Twilight of Wolumonde event comes with the introduction of Winterwisp Blood Shamans and their stronger variants, Winterwisp Blood Magisters. They are a suicide bomber unit similar to Infused Originium Slugs, but miles more dangerous due to their extremely high speed, high ASPD and extremely punishing melee strikes that are also DEF-piercing Arts. They can cause someone tanky like Hoshiguma or Blaze to quickly crumple, necessitating major healing support for anyone blocking them. Sure, these units take damage every second by themselves like the Enraged Possessed, but due to their high speed this hardly matters, not to mention they have a massive amount of HP to both render this a non-issue and make it even harder to kill them before they get up close. This makes it easy for any Blood Shaman and Magister to reach the defensive line and wreak havoc, before blowing up to deal massive AoE arts suicide damage. As if the high arts ASPD and arts suicide damage wasn't enough, their explosion can also instantly hijack Gramophones in their vicinity. Due to the event heavy usage of Gramophones tower to deal with Colossi and other enemies, one will have a bad time if the player cannot deal with the Blood Shaman and Magister in a timely manner or in a way that doesn't make them explode near a Gramophone.
- So Long, Adele introduces the Urban Whirlwind Walkers and Tornado Trendsetters, which are similar suicidal charging enemies that trade explosion upon death for explosion upon impact, dealing massive Arts damage in a cross shape and spawning Carmine Steam in the blast radius. They also split apart into a Hot Spring Mischievous/Jolly Rascal and Fashion Street Hearty/Robust Heavy after impact. A single hit from one of these wooly whirlwinds can cripple a clumped defensive line due to the blast damage overlapping with the instant Arts/Burn damage from Carmine Steam being spawned on top of your units, and they tend to come with support from other enemies that will exploit the Carmine Steam they spawn, including the two split sheep that will gleefully finish off units crippled by the blast. If the ground is already covered in Carmine Steam, the 50% buff to damage taken means that the explosion will more often than not instantly wipe everything in the area instead of merely crippling it, doubly so if it's from a Tornado Trendsetter; this situation is alarmingly common if two or more of these things approach you at once, forcing you to have a Soda Bottle or Fountain-buffed Operator at the ready before the second one hits. They are extremely squishy and can be killed before reaching their destination, but this is slightly complicated by their extreme speed and tendency to come with groups, on top of being able to take advantage of existing Carmine Steam to greatly increase their bulk, including that created from other Whirlwind Walkers or their spawned sheep. To add insult to injury, not only do they take 2 Life Points when leaking due to technically being a 2-in-one enemy, if you block them too late right in front of the blue box, they can even drop one of the split sheep directly into it to cause an instant leak.
- The Colossi from Twilight of Wolumonde (Mudrock Colossi and the stronger Hexed Colossi) have extremely ridiculous health and damage coupled with strong defenses, only balanced by their very slow speed and the fact that the Gramophone towers rip them apart due to their Arts being a Percent Damage Attack. However, said towers are pretty much the only shot you have bringing them down, since their insane stats make them borderline impossible to stall or kill via any other means. And considering that many enemies in the event can either contest or outright instantly capture Gramophones and turn them hostile (which makes it heal the Colossus as well, letting them recover an absurd amount of HP since their healing is also percent-based), if one of these behemoths appears and you don't have enough of the towers under your control, you're tough out of luck.
- Two Mudrock Colossi appear in the permanent map of Contingency Contract's Operation Lead Seal, and while they have significantly reduced base HP, they still retain their insane durability and ability to one shot just about anything - exacerbated by the issue of the stage not having any gramophones to deal with them. Worse still, not only are they affected by global enemy buff risks like all other enemies, there are specific contracts to jack their stats up while letting them No-Sell either stuns or slows/binds.
- Darknights Memoir introduces Sarkaz Grudgebearers and their stronger counterparts, Sarkaz Worldcursers. While they're initially passive until hit or signaled by a Sarkaz Sentinel, they have a ton of HP for caster-type enemies and use very damaging Arts attacks that hit two targets at once. Worse still, they move surprisingly fast and have a longer attack range than most caster enemies, letting them run you down and deal disturbing amounts of burst damage while soaking up hits in return. The worst part is that they almost always come in groups, meaning that slipping up and triggering all of their aggro states at once will result in all of them simultaneously blowing up anyone that they get in range of.
- Operation Cinder's permanent map even has contracts that specifically buff the Grudgebearers by boosting their HP and ATK while letting them ignore up to 70% of their target's RES - combined with buffs from the Sarkaz Sentinels and other contracts, this makes them impossible to assassinate quickly while letting them instantly kill even RES-buffed units with impunity.
- In Darknights Memoir, besides the already well-known Sarkaz Grudgebearers and Worldcursers, we have the Sarkaz Lancers and Lancer Leaders. By their own, they aren't that much of a threat; if they build up enough speed, is another story, however. How they work is that as soon as they spawn, they began to bumrush the player defensive line, building up enough speed in order to thrust their lance into the first operator that blocks them. This is troublesome because their attack will deal 600 additional damage multiplied by their current traveling speed (which at maximum stacks, is 3.375 tiles/second), enough to kill almost anything that blocks them if not severely wounding them for other enemies to finish off. It's even worse if their speed get boosted further by an Originium Flow Generator, which buffs their speed by a massive 80% and gives them even more damage output (A Sarkaz Lancer Leader charging at full speed in the direction of an Originium Flow Generator can deal a whopping 5900 damage in a single hit, enough to kill anything without massive DEF buffs or invincibility). Without a good way to stop their movement and resetting their speed stack, players' defensive lines will quickly collapse under their continued assault - especially in EX mode where they appear in larger groups, DM-MO-1 where they'll purposely build up speed in a safe corner of the map before charging down an Originium Jetstream, and Operation Cinder where they are buffed by contracts that let them accelerate faster while making them deal 10x damage from the thrust, turning any thrusts even at low speed lethal as long as they're allowed to move at all.
- A Flurry to the Flame has Direswines, effectively much tankier Sarkaz Lancers that also count as 2 units when blocked and deal speed-scaling contact damage when passing through units, allowing them to run through your lines and trample multiple units at once. Their destructive potential is most evident in the Big Migration node of the fourth Integrated Strategies mode, where they will bulldoze your defense line if you lack slows or sufficiently tanky Defenders to stop them in their tracks.
- Offenders from Lone Trail are a similar charging unit, but have much higher stats than Lancers, including a hefty DEF that makes physical damage unadvised and a high ATK that makes them deal heavy damage even when blocked. Although they can't do impact damage like a Lancer, they have extreme collision damage even at lower movement speeds, which is compounded by them taking up 3 block to let them turn any 2 or 1 block units into roadkill. Combined with the event's Gravity mechanic and boss allowing them to stack significant movement speed buffs, things can get hairy very fast if a sped-up Offender barrels into your defensive line and takes a huge bite out of it, encouraging players to use Arts damage to melt them down before they can get moving.
- Maria Nearl gives us the Bloodboil Knightclub Trainees & Elites. While their stats are above-average at best, their ATK and ASPD increase with every enemy killed up to 10 times, giving them a total of +100% ATK and 50% ASPD. Given that most of them appear after a wave of enemies coming close to the blue box, you would need to deal with them quickly with some kind of ranged DPS, because a fully buffed Bloodboil knight will tear through just about anything sent to stall them.
- Coming along in Maria Nearl are Bladehelm Knightclub Trainees & Elites. They have very high stats for a regular enemy, and can deal heavy Arts damage to both melee and ranged tiles, meaning that neither your squishies or tanks are safe from their assault. Furthermore, they can halve the attack of your operator with currently the highest-ATK on the map for 25 seconds to severely reduce their damage output, and since the skill has a cooldown period identical as its duration (shorter if it's an Elite) means they'll be able to keep this up permanently unless they're killed. To make matters worse, their high HP is effectively doubled because they can revive themselves when killed for the first time.
- Tiacauh Braves and Champions are highly threatening brutes whose massive stats are compounded by their special ability, where anyone that blocks them will be forced into a one-on-one duel where both the Brave and the Operator will have -70% DEF, and the Brave will become immune to all damage that didn't originate from its opponent. This makes using ranged units to assist the blocker out of the question, which can spell disaster if they happened to run into an Operator not suited for direct combat, so you best hope that whatever blocks the Brave first can handle them. While the DEF drop means any reasonably leveled physical attacker will be able to hurt the croc, your units are also liable to die very quickly due to the Brave's high ATK and the aforementioned DEF reduction; to make matters worse, the friendly in the duel is not subject to invulnerability from other sources, so other enemies will gleefully advantage of the Operator's crippled DEF to cut them down. The best options to deal with them are to either block them with duelists that can kill them in short order or gun them down before they can react, but the latter is harder than it sounds due to their high DEF when unblocked as well as their massive HP.
- Pugilist Prisoners, especially their elite variant. Due to their fast ASPD, they can free themselves in no time - and that isn't even counting the fact that they're often accompanied by Caster Prisoners who passively raise their ASPD even more. And unlike Brawlers, they don't practice the Death of a Thousand Cuts trope as they will greatly increase their ATK and start ignoring 60% of the target's DEF when freed, which will happen given how fast they hit. Arguably, they were the most dangerous mob-type enemy in MB-EX-8, able to melt down a defensive lineup and casually strut into the blue box if left unchecked. While Arts Damage is their Achilles' Heel, these guys are faster than most enemies in the event, leaving you with a significantly shorter timeframe to burst them down.
- Redmark Eradicators from Operation Originium Dust can only attack Operators exposed to sandstorms, but possess a global-ranged rifle attack which inflicts enough damage to one-shot most ranged units and heavily injure melee units. Since it's often difficult to make your entire defensive line sandstorm-proof, these guys will easily punch holes in your lines if your placement isn't careful. To make matters worse, they never come alone, meaning that if multiple target one unit at once, it's almost certainly dead without exception. And if you thought you could simply assassinate them before they get a chance to attack, they're invisible and can only be damaged when blocked or revealed, not helped by the fact that they almost always perch on tiles where you can't deploy anything to block them.
- War Phantoms and their Legendary variant from A Walk in the Dust are tanky, hard-hitting, and can move more quickly than the average bulky enemy. Furthermore, they supplant their damage and survivability by summoning both the Scrap and Anvil drones while other enemies in the event can only summon one of them. The Scrap drone is able to hit an operator and their nearby allies with DEF-reducing splash, which can severely hurt operators on its own and helps a War Phantom take down any blocker. Meanwhile, the Anvil drone creates a field to heal both themselves and surrounding enemies. Even worse, War Phantoms are able to passively buff all drones summoned by both themselves and other enemies to make them arrive faster, allowing the drones to get to work sooner.
- Pocket Sea Crawlers and the stronger Nutritious Crawlers from Under Tides initially appear to be Stone Walls, with their inability to attack and titanic HP coupled with nonexistent defenses. However, their true means of screwing with you is that they will release a pulse dealing high Arts damage and Nervous Impairment to all Operators in a large radius whenever they lose 15% of their HP, making them deceptively dangerous. If the aren't gradually whittled down or taken out from range, the area stun from the Nervous Impairment buildup can cause a whole defensive line to crumple, if the massive Arts/True damage doesn't do it first - especially if you try to burst it down at the wrong time. Their total lack of defense actually works in their favor too, as it makes them harder to safely stall without triggering their attacks. A minor saving grace is that they cannot trigger their pulses if they are stunned, giving you a bit of time to whittle down their HP safely, though the operators that can immediately take advantage of this marginal timeframe (ie. Ash with her S2) are few and far between.
- Their cousins, the Sea Basin/Nutritious Reapers aren't much better. While they start in a standby state, they'll go berserk when attacked, burning away their health to emit an aura dealing constant Nervous Impairment to all nearby Operators, which builds up at an alarmingly fast rate combined with their own attacks also inflicting it; again, possibly resulting in a party-wide stun or even a Total Party Kill. Not only do they have too much health to be reliably killed quickly, they're also incredibly fast, meaning that a Reaper that breaches your lines is most likely going to barrel through the map and into the objective at light speed if you can't find a way to stop it.
- The Dockworker Motorboats from Dossoles Holiday are irritatingly threatening and annoying baddies to deal with. They have towering amounts of HP and DEF which allows them to take a severe beating, and hit incredibly hard to boot. However, that in of itself isn't the issue with them; what's most damning of all is that like the Bullies of Code of Brawl, they can only be blocked by Operators with a block count of three; unlike Bullies, not only can they deal heavy physical damage to any Operator they merely collide with (including the one sent to block them, meaning they essentially get a free hit off), they don't take complex routes around the map to give the player time to counter them, preferring to head to the blue box ASAP to ruin your day. To exacerbate the problem further, some of the stages in which they're encountered feature rising tides, which will gimp your deployment as you cannot deploy operators on tiles submerged by water (unless you are equipped with certain stickers to bypass this), which can make it hard to deploy a Defender or any other DPS operators to both halt the Dockworker Motorboat's advance and kill them quickly. And even if you kill them, you now have to deal with them becoming regular Dockworkers (who have high stats and can stun your units like Defense Crushers) after being defeated once, although destroying the Motorboat over water will more often than not instantly kill the resulting Dockworker due to their erosion weakness (Good luck trying to do so).
- The Armorless Union's Third Squad and Cleanup Squad from Near Light consist of archers that have long enough range to attack from virtually anywhere on the map, including from the darkness where they can't be targeted back. Their attacks deal heavy damage, can crit every fourth shot and, most damningly, inflict large amounts of Corrosion damage that will turn your units' defenses into butter, if the physical damage bursts don't kill them outright. Since their Corrosion applies on every hit and they tend to come in groups, this means they'll be able to pick the unit you last deployed and continuously Corrode them at a rate faster than Wandering Medics can hope to outheal, meaning that even Defenders acting as bait for their arrows will melt unless they have a ton of raw HP and healing to survive an assault with severely weakened DEF.
- Break the Ice has SilverAsh's Elite Mooks, the Tschäggättäs. They boast very high stats all around, and are one of the few melee units also able to hit high ground tiles, letting them blow up squishies due to their high attack power. Furthermore, every attack inflicts a stacking permanent DEF debuff on the target, meaning that even if their target is able to resist their blows, they won't be able to do so for very long. To add insult to injury, they're not only resistant to statuses, but actually have their already hefty ATK increased when it's snowing, letting them take advantage of your vulnerable operators to cleave through them.
- Invitation to Wine has the Blueflowers and stronger Scarletmists, which initially appear to be just stronger versions of the regular Caster enemies. However, every fourth (third for Scarletmists) attack will inflict a debuff that deals Arts Damage Over Time which significantly increases in severity as it persists. The debuff lasts for 20 seconds, meaning that halfway through its duration, it'll have already built up enough damage to melt most units out of existence, healing be damned. This necessitates that players prepare decoys to bait out the special attack, kill the thing before it can attack, or have a lot of healing/RES buffs/status resistance prepared. And of course, they'll turn into an unblockable Vase when defeated which needs several blows from Arts/True damage to take out.
- Also from Invitation to Wine are the Sinkingsands and stronger Sharpedges. They're Lightning Bruisers through and through, with very high HP, good defenses, and extremely powerful attacks coupled with fast movement and attack speed. Furthermore, their already high ATK will be increased by 70~80% if they're still carrying one of the four Broken Blades they spawn with, which can only be consumed one by one by letting the Sinkingsand land attacks, likely killing whoever they're targeting given how hard they hit. Shooting them down early is an option, but it's easier said than done given the thing's health, speed, and ability to split into 1~4 Spearheads on death (one for every unused Blade), which each need a whopping 25~30 hits to defeat and can screw you over if you unleash too many of them. That leaves the player with a choice - do you try to make it use its Blades and potentially lose a few units, or kill it early and risk the Spearheads floating through your defenses?
- Pathfinder Dessert Vendors from Guide Ahead initially appear to have slightly above-average stats besides their very high health, but carry up to three Snack Carts that they'll send along their paths which, when blocked, will explode to deal Arts and Burn damage to all units in an area. The Burn is nasty, but the real problem is when a hostile Gelato Stop is nearby, upon which they'll constantly replenish their ammo and send an endless stream of Snack Carts in a similar manner to Dublinn Evocators, gradually blasting away at your units unless you have Wandering Medics working overtime. Trying to stop the Vendor is also harder than it looks because their ATK is increased to 250% when being blocked, often letting them run right over anyone without high defenses and healing support, not to mention that they can still deploy their Snack Carts while blocked to cause even more damage.
- Pathfinder Nuncios, also from Guide Ahead, share the above-average stat spread and high HP of the Dessert Vendors, but carry an Arts bullet that they'll use on the first target they see, which deals 50% extra damage and renders them unable to attack or use skills for a good amount of time. This is problematic for a target already fighting other enemies, since not only does it deal a lot of damage, it leaves them wide open to attack, especially from the Nuncios themselves who attack fairly fast and deal decent Arts damage per hit. If they're within range of a hostile Gelato Stop to reload their ammo, this becomes even more threatening since they can permanently disarm a single target, or even disable multiple units at once.
- Nethersea/Nourished Reefbreakers from Stultifera Navis are Lightning Bruisers with deceptively high mixed bulk and the ability to gradually increase their ATK every time they attack. They boast a fast attack rate that lets them stack this up alarmingly quickly, upon which they'll start tearing through ranged units like paper and cutting down melee units just as fast since their melee attacks deal double damage. One might think to gun them down before they can stack too much, but not only are they very evasive because of their speed, they can turn invisible when atop Nethersea Brands; these things mostly show up in the EX and S stages where Nethersea Brand and sources thereof are annoyingly aplenty, allowing them to avoid retaliation and attack with impunity if you don't have something to reveal them or clean up the Brand fast enough, since blocking them while they have stacks will usually result in the swift death of the blocker. Fortunately, their stacks will decay when not hitting anything, making them particularly vulnerable to status effects if they can be revealed.
- R-Series Power Armors from Dorothy's Vision have tremendously high HP, ATK, and DEF, making them nigh unstoppable juggernauts despite being slow as molasses. Physical units will often fail to scratch them, and their extreme HP means that even Arts units without heavy burst may struggle to bring them down. The melee R-31 Heavy variant can also unleash Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs that can kill even tanky targets while stunlocking them, while the ranged R-11 Assault variant fires rockets that can blast 4 targets at once from halfway across the map. Fortunately, they're usually found in a dormant state and will only wake up when filled up by Dor Experiments (or when Awaken Turns Red), which offers the chance to kill them early. However, not only do the dormant armors still have the insane durability of the real deal and a tendency to be targeted last among the other enemies, Dor units tend to show up in large numbers and from multiple directions while being decently beefy (particularly Dor-3 units that have very high bulk and can instantly awaken an armor on contact), forcing you to carefully manage the waves unless you want a horde of power armors bearing down on you.
- Famiglia Cleaners and Silent Cleaners will be single-handedly responsible for most of the difficulty in Il Siracusano, as they're incredibly powerful stealthed units with a lot of bulk and equally powerful ranged attacks. What really makes them this is that you'll have to deal with one of these each time the Blood Ledger fills up, which is near unavoidable due to the way the event mechanics work. Not only will you have an extremely powerful enemy on your hands along with the other beefed up enemies, the Cleaner benefits from both the massive ATK/DEF buff Asset Liquidation grants and their own unique buff (which further buffs their ATK, DEF, and ASPD during that time), letting them instantly wipe out most ranged units and even assassinate bulky melee units in seconds, all while being untargetable and extremely tanky even if you can reveal or block them. This is especially lethal in some of the harder stages, where the Blood Ledger tends to fill up far more frequently and while other major threats are active, letting the hyper-buffed Cleaner dismantle your entire lineup without retaliation if you can't find a way to keep them occupied.
- From Come Catastrophes or Wakes of Vultures, many of the bulkier enemies can qualify due to the Energy mechanic letting them stack hefty amounts of stats, but especially the Paramilitary Bombardiers, who spawn with a beefy 25 Energy (giving them +250% ATK and +500% DEF right off the bat) albeit losing 1 every 5 seconds, have a lot of HP, and use a decently long-ranged grenade attack that deals splash damage. They'll take advantage of their inflated stats to pound your lines with disturbingly powerful AoEs that can wipe out most squishies in seconds, and are fairly dangerous threats even when blocked, since their melee attacks deal twice the damage of their ranged ones. Furthermore, since they spawn with 25/30 Energy, it's pretty easy for them to get the last 5 Energy needed to enter Overload, which will drastically increase their DEF, RES, and ASPD to the point where they'll become nigh-immortal killing machines and decimate everything in sight. Fortunately, if you can survive their onslaught, they'll be left extremely vulnerable afterwards due to completely running out of Energy, leaving them with only their low base stats.
Alternate Modes
- Retrofitted and Supercharged Gastrucks in Multivariate Cooperation. They're very tanky, decently hard-hitting, and will emit gas that deals constant Arts damage to all the operators on the map unless it's blocked, which stacks if multiple trucks are alive at once. Combine it with the fact that they appear on the Abandoned Factory, which is already filled with multiple sources of HP reducing poison, the presence of even one Gastruck can collapse a defensive line from the combined damage over time effects, much less if you can't kill them in time and they start stacking up.
- Phantom and Crimson Solitaire introduces Scarlet Singers, caster-type enemies with very high HP, decent attack power, and the ability to inflict Nervous Impairment on hit. However, every time they take 20 hits, they will additionally double the ASPD of every enemy on the map, meaning that defenses may suddenly find themselves overwhelmed by the roided-up enemies, while the unit attacking the Singer will immediately get pounded with Arts. The main way to deal with these are to cut them up before they join the bulk of the main force, but as they tend to come out relatively early and if they appear, they will appear in every wave of the stage, options to do so are few and far between.
- Crimson Solitaire also adds Theatre Golems, extremely bulky brutes whose massively damaging attacks can hit ranged tiles and deal splash damage to everything around them, letting them crush entire groups of units at once while making it less safe to try and just shoot them down. They're also essentially unblockable without certain units or Collections since they count as 4 units when it comes to blocking, making blowing them up before they walk through your defenses (and possibly take a chunk out of them) the only real option. Fortunately, they move very slowly and don't have very high defenses, although their enormous HP helps mitigate the latter. Just to add insult to injury, they also take 2 Life Points instead of one if you let them through.
- Skimming Sea Drifters from Mizuki & Caerula Arbor are a terror to deal with, as they hit hard from range, inflict heavy amounts of Corrosion damage, and have abnormally high HP for an aerial unit,note making them extremely difficult to bring down for many ranged units, particularly those of lower rarity. They also tend to come in groups, so without serious skill power, ranged attacks will often be unable to deal enough damage to defeat all of them before they leave their range, making them one of the most common cause of leaks in the mode (to the point where leaking enough Drifters is actually a condition to unlock several items). They do have a major weakness to debuffs like Stun, Freeze, and Sleep, as this will make them lose their flight and ranged attacks, along with them often flying over holes that they can be knocked down over to kill them instantly, but units that can reliably inflict those status effects on aerial targets are relatively rare, with many of the best options being limited or welfare units (which are only available during their events, reruns and Record Restorations) such as Texas the Omertosa, Kroos the Keen Glint and W. note Adding to that is given the randomness of the Roguelike game mode, the player may not even get those units even if they are in their roster.
- Their Retching Broodmother cousins aren't much better. They're an extremely long-ranged siege unit with a lot of HP and good defenses, along with the ability to spawn a Baleful Broodling on their target with each attack. The Broodlings can not only eat up block count and draw attacks to themselves, they'll also inflict constant physical and Corrosion damage, letting them whittle down operators as their Broodmother endlessly spawns them until you eliminate the Broodmother themselves. On higher Surging Waves levels, both the Broodmother and the Broodlings will inflict so much damage that they can outright dismantle your defense from halfway across the map free from retaliation (unless you spawn-camp them or have a long/global ranged unit), and can single handedly make most low-ground units inviable at the highest difficulties. They do have a weakness in their inability to attack ranged units, letting them attack it with impunity, but this is still easier said than done due to their very high bulk and them often coming with other units that can threaten ranged tiles in their stead.
- Vein Guardians from Fire Within the Sand will likely be one of the main killers of the mode, as they have an extremely nasty Attack Reflector that deals 200 Arts damage to anything that attacks them. This completely ruins the day of anything with a fast attack speed, Damage Over Time, or even just multi-hit burst options, all of which you'll likely be reliant on due to the mode encouraging you to hamstring and burst down the enemy hordes before they inevitably overrun your blockers. Even the strongest healing options will be hard-pressed to outheal the reflection damage on any of your damage dealers, and the operators that have enough self-sustain to survive prolonged combat are few and far between. To make things even worse, they have massive HP comparable to some boss enemies and taunt on top of that, meaning that your units are going to be taking that recoil damage.
- Introduced in Expeditioner's Joklumarkar, Shattered Champions are unlike most Elite enemies in that they have no special abilities to threaten you with. Turns out they don't really need it, as also unlike most Elite enemies, they're incredibly fast - moving at 2.5 tiles/second, considerably outstripping Hounds and rivalling Sarkaz Lancers. Instead of being a Fragile Speedster like said enemies, they're a fully-fledged Lightning Bruiser with towering stats all around except for their low RES; ranged units will often fail to kill them before they zoom out of range, and even if you can halt their charge, they can just chop down anything short of a dedicated tank in seconds with their fast attack speed, then get right back to running. To add insult to injury, Shattered Champions have a tendency to take alarmingly direct paths to the base, which means if you didn't have something already there to deal with them, you can pretty much kiss one of your Life Points goodbye. They do get less painful once you've gotten enough experience to know when they'll show up as to not get blindsided, but there's still no guarantee that you'll have the means to deal with it. They're already bad by default, but can get really nasty on higher Braving Nature levels where their high base stats let them become even more terrifying with the stat inflation, particularly since their simultaneous classification as Elites and Collapsals lets them benefit from both the Elite-exclusive buffs and the Non-Linear Movement Paradigm if you get it.
- Testaceous Vinecreeps are an upgrade to Chest Seaborns in Caerula Arbor. They won't wake up if you don't poke them, but sometimes you have no option, and will have to contend with their high stats and fast ASPD that can quickly take out even tanky Defenders. But for whatever reason, unlike all the Metal Slimes so far and even the Chest Seaborns themselves, they will deduct 2 life points if they make it to the objective. If you poke one of these, your perfect run is likely gone, causing more Collapse buildup at best and potentially losing you the run at worst if other enemies swoop in to finish the job.
- Collapsed Constructs are typically Bats as they are fast with ranged attack, so their threat comes from having your ranged operators shoot them down before they fly right to the protection objective. But it's a different story when a swarm of them comes buzzing to you. One shot may not hurt that much, but 9 of them firing at once going to demolish your backline, especially when buffed by Emergency modifier. The solution is of course to put a Defender to tank the shots, but they also have a tendency to take a looping route, meaning at some point the Defender will be out of their attack range and they will get back to firing at your ranged backline. For these reasons, Marksman Snipers are virtually a must when you are tackling maps where they come in swarms, such as Collapsal Afternoon.
