Key takeaways
- Damage scaling (DS) — the multiplier the unit gains per upgrade level, expressed as a percentage of base attack. Anything under 5% per level falls off by wave 20 and should not receive a slot in a serious lineup.
- Placement cost (PC) — points spent to field the unit. Cheap units win ties, because the same budget buys a second body or a support slot.
- Upgrade curve (UC) — whether the gains are linear, front-loaded, or back-loaded. Front-loaded curves are the best value for early accounts; they come online at upgrade 2–3 rather than 6–8.
Abyss Tier List Guide: What Actually Decides a Unit’s Rank
The best units in Abyss are not the rarest ones — they are the ones that convert the least placement cost into the most cleared waves, and the Abyss tier list guide below ranks everything on damage scaling, summon cost and upgrade curve instead of the star rarity printed on the card. A 4-star unit with a flat 1.3× per-level damage curve will lose to a 3-star unit that gains 9% of its base attack every upgrade, because placement points are a fixed budget and you spend them every run.
Three numbers do the ranking work here, and all three are visible on the unit panel before you commit resources:
- Damage scaling (DS) — the multiplier the unit gains per upgrade level, expressed as a percentage of base attack. Anything under 5% per level falls off by wave 20 and should not receive a slot in a serious lineup.
- Placement cost (PC) — points spent to field the unit. Cheap units win ties, because the same budget buys a second body or a support slot.
- Upgrade curve (UC) — whether the gains are linear, front-loaded, or back-loaded. Front-loaded curves are the best value for early accounts; they come online at upgrade 2–3 rather than 6–8.
The 2026 Abyss Tier Table
PC figures assume a standard run budget of 40 placement points, which is what most stage-1 clears allow. Upgrade cost is listed as total points sunk to reach a functional state, not max level.
| Tier | What defines it | DS per level | Typical PC | Points to functional |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | Carries a lane alone; scales past wave 30 without support | 8–12% | 8–12 | 6–9 |
| A | Strong but needs one support or a choke point | 6–8% | 6–9 | 5–8 |
| B | Fine filler, bad as a core; plateaus around wave 18 | 4–6% | 4–6 | 3–5 |
| C | Rarity bait: high stats, terrible curve | 2–4% | 10–14 | 10+ |
The C tier is the one that costs new accounts the most. A 5-star unit sitting at a 14 PC placement with a 3% curve looks impressive in the collection screen and quietly ruins a run, because you spent a third of your budget on a body that stops contributing by wave 12.
S-Tier Slots and Their Cheap Substitutes
Every S slot below has a substitute that does at least 80% of the job for roughly half the placement cost. The substitutes are deliberately listed by archetype rather than name, since the cheapest option in each role rotates with events and reruns.
S Slot 1: Ranged Sustained Damage
Flagship pick: a single-target Marksman with an 11% per-level curve and a 10 PC placement. It clears the first 25 waves of most stages with no support at all.
Substitute: a two-target Archer archetype at 5 PC with a 7% curve. You will need two of them, which totals 10 PC — the same budget — but the pair covers two lanes instead of one, and they reach functional state two upgrades earlier. For anything with a split path, the substitute is genuinely better.
S Slot 2: Area Denial
Flagship pick: a Mortar-style unit at 12 PC with a 9% curve and splash on every third shot.
Substitute: a Frost or slow-field unit at 6 PC. It does almost no damage, but a 35% slow for four seconds effectively doubles the time your Slot 1 unit has to kill a wave. Placement note: put it at the corner of the map where the path bends twice, so the slow field overlaps both legs of the route. On most maps that corner sits within 2 tiles of the path edge — one tile further and the field misses the second pass entirely.
S Slot 3: Single-Target Burst
Flagship pick: a high-cost Assassin archetype at 12 PC that removes armored elites before they reach the goal.
Substitute: a Poison or damage-over-time unit at 5 PC. It cannot delete an elite, but stacking two DoT units handles the same armor value over eight seconds for 10 PC total. If your front line holds for eight seconds — which it will if Slot 2 is filled — the substitute clears the same elite.
Situation Matrix: What to Build With What You Have
Tier lists assume an open budget. Most accounts do not have one, so match your situation to the row instead of chasing the flagship column.
| Your situation | Build this | Ignore this | Budget split |
|---|---|---|---|
| New account, under 30 PC available | Two 5 PC ranged + one 6 PC slow field | Any 10+ PC unit | 16 PC fielded, rest held |
| Armored waves stalling you | DoT stack (2 units, 5 PC each) | Raw single-target burst | 10 PC into DoT minimum |
| Split-path map | Two cheap ranged over one strong ranged | Single-lane carries | Even split, no lane above 6 PC |
| Endless / wave 30+ | One true S carry + support | Cheap substitutes | 12 PC carry, 8 PC support |
Upgrade Curve Math: Why Front-Loaded Beats Raw Stats
Take two units at 100 base attack. Unit A gains 4% per level; Unit B gains 9% but only after level 5, gaining 1% before that. At upgrade 3 — the realistic point in an early run — A sits at 112 attack and B at 103. B eventually wins at upgrade 8, but reaching upgrade 8 costs 14 placement points, at which point you have no budget left for support and the wave 15 armor check kills you anyway.
The practical rule: calculate your effective damage at upgrade 3, not at max level. Most runs end before any unit reaches max, so a tier list built on max-level stats is describing a game you are not playing. When you evaluate a new unit, ask what it does with six points sunk into it, because that is roughly one third of a standard budget and the most any single unit should consume.
Placement Cost Discipline
Two habits separate accounts that clear wave 25 from accounts that stall at 14:
- Never field more than 60% of your budget in the first two waves. Holding 15+ points means you can answer a wave-3 spawn that your opening composition does not cover.
- Sell before you upgrade past functional. Upgrades 7 and 8 on a B-tier unit cost more than fielding a fresh substitute at functional state. If a unit is not in an S or A slot, stop upgrading it at level 5.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does rarity matter at all?
It correlates with base stats, not with scaling. A 5-star unit with a 3% curve is a worse placement than a 3-star with 8%, because placement points, not card rarity, are the binding constraint. Treat rarity as a tiebreaker only after DS, PC and curve match.
How many units should a functional lineup have?
Four to six on standard maps, and no more than two of them above 8 PC. Anything beyond six bodies is usually better spent as upgrades on the units already carrying.
When should I switch from substitutes to flagship picks?
When your available budget clears 40 PC without selling your front line. Below that threshold the substitute pairs win more often than the single flagship, because coverage beats concentration on any map with more than one path.
