- why himiko?
best focus growth out of all the v3 characters. same stats as angie so it doesn't really matter which one you go for but i hate angie and i remember himiko's yearly board game events better. still failed one in the run i think and ended up with 10 more blue fragments that i needed. no biggie
we care about focus because our first character will just be a Fog bot. all of our fighting will be done by S characters; Himiko on her own can just avoid encounters thanks to Fog (x3 casts with her focus pool of level 5-6 Fog is enough to get us completely clean through /most/ floors, 21-25 runs a bit short but we just run away from the final few encounters).
so yea, Himiko is just trained to fog up and collect chests for 1000 gold (2/3/7/7/8 is where we get our chests, but you can sub out 7 for one on floor 5 depending on how fog timings work out), which lets us savescum for an S pull.


- the S pull
we pull from DRV3 because we want an S mage to get us through bosses 10/20/30 quickly and DRV3 has the highest percentage of mages (1/3 is a mage, plus rantaro which has 3 intellect growth - viable enough). you're hoping for any blue unit; unfortunately in this run I got Kaede which just kinda sucks but I pulled it first try so I just rolled with it. weak intellect, but enough to get me through, even with notable time losses (especially on 3rd boss).

- S training (train two)
max out damage w/ ice freeze, get utility spells. Debuff is mega useful because it eases the Monokoppa fight at the end of the run, so packing it is great. if you can fit intellect up too it's dope but bleh you're kinda stretching out too much. revive/heal can be decent utility to ensure you at least survive floor 30, even if at a snail's pace, but only take those if you messed up and have leftover greens really. level up a ton if you can help it, 99 is broken

- floor 10
two S units just kinda smack him. ezpz

- floor 20
dude has physical resistance, is the reason we need an S mage and can't really go with physical hitters. but S mages do chunk him down mega quick

- floor 30
this thing is /tough/ and you're meant to equip that gun I picked up on floor 25 to go faster but I forgot to in this run. fuck me. but it's still doable and after this you can finally unlock Us!

- the U pull
savescum again woo!!! I went for DRV3 again because mages are safer, but at the same time DR1 is the one with the biggest chance of giving you a non-green unit which is viable - I would just rather have the flexibility of a large focus pool than forcing myself onto two physical hitters which struggle with carrying fog and all of the utility buffs etc. run pulled Miu thankfully which has the highest intellect growth so good stuff. (had to reroll a Kaito he sucks)

- U training (train two)
max out damage w/ ice freeze and power it up with skill power up and ice power up. make sure to carry intellect up on one of your Us, and make sure to get debuff if your S doesn't have it. upgrading your fog user from himiko is probably a good idea by now so slam a level 10 fog here. surgeries here are incredibly nice (but then again are surgeries ever not nice?) to speed up things but they're always a gamble unless you have the success card.

- floor 40 boss
this fucker will mass blind you and he has decent magic resist but he got nothing on U mages bashing him tbh. pretty easy fight, drops a +80% int item (and a +80% strength one if you happen to run that for some reason) which speeds up final boss a ton.

- floor 50 boss
your S user should just be preemptively debuffing every turn since their piss damage isn't relevant anymore anyway and keeping All Up off of Koppa is pretty important. intellect up will also bait koppa to waste his turn debuffing, letting you sneak damage in a bit at a time. it's kinda always risky especially with two Us but it's generally consistent enough if you properly bait him to attack very scarcely thanks to buffs and debuffs.

winner winner chicken dinner