The Ninja Tower requires a different kind of strategy to succeed in completing all 50 levels. It also requires a disgusting amount of time to use your 10 Tower flags every day. I typically took 5 - 7 minutes per Level from Level 30 and upwards. This means you should expect to budget an hour a day on this quest alone if you want to complete it. The lower 19 Levels are relatively quick though because there’s only 1 wave of mobs before the bosses.
The most attention grabbing thing is the Oni curses / blessings. Like Pumpkin and Easter egg bombs from the seasonal quests, the Oni Stones drop onto the board at random intervals and you have 3 turns to make a match that clears them from the board. If you fail to do so the Oni Stone explodes and curses one of your heroes. If your hero gets cursed twice, you can no longer use that hero in future Ninja Tower Levels. You do get to complete the current level if a hero gets its second curse though.
In testing I lost about a dozen 80s and maybe another dozen 70s to curses. Based on this I’m going to recommend that you have at least fifty heroes at level 70 or higher. If you don’t have fifty heroes at 70 or better, use 3-star heroes for the first 10 Levels or so to stretch your resources. When you reach the point where you run low or out of Revive Scrolls on a Level then it’s time to use stronger heroes.
You should try to have 2 healers in each attack group once the Toxic Vapor damage reaches 100 points every 3 turns at Level 36. What is Toxic Vapor? There are Deadly Chamber effects that start occurring on each Level of the Tower as you progress upwards. Here’s the Cliff notes.
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Deadly chamber effects:
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Toxic Vapor damage similar to the Poison Mists in Atlantis happen every 3 turns starting from Level 6. It also increases as you go higher in the Tower. Level 6 is 50 points every 3 turns. Level 21 bumps up to 75 points, Level 36 goes to 100 points.
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Fragile Floor reduces the number of items you can take per battle item slot. Level 11 reduces the number by 1 item, at Level 26 it reduces by 2. You will always be able to take at least 1 battle item per slot. Note that Revive Scrolls really get hosed from Level 26 onward and you may as well take a Miracle Scroll instead.
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Erratic Time Chamber shortens status effects by 1 turn starting at Level 16 and by 2 turns starting at Level 31. Status effects will always last at least 1 turn.
These heroes are OK to use up to Tower Level 30, beyond that, their status effects get limited to 1 turn. I’m only listing 4-star and 5-star heroes, 3-stars don’t survive beyond Level 30. Note that heroes that have status effects which normally last 2 turns already get hosed starting from Level 16. It’s just that the bosses below Level 30 are not as tough as the higher level ones so a 1 turn burn from Gravemaker is still marginally useful.
Red: Black Knight, Gravemaker, Grazul, Jean-Francois, Santa.
Blue: Kiril, Aegir, Alasie, Alice, Finley, Vela
Green: Brynhild, Buddy, Hansel, Little John, Cabin Boy Peters, Costumed Melendor, Costumed Elkanen, Frigg, Gregorian, Kadilen, Costumed Lianna, Lady Locke, Margaret, Telluria, Yunan, Zocc.
Purple: First Mate Boomer, Jabbar, Merlin, Proteus, Costumed Rigard, Aeron, Alfrike, Hel, Jabberwock, Khiona, Victor.
Yellow: Danzaburo, Gretel, Mist, Bai Yeong, Drake, Inari, Malosi, Onatel, Poseidon, Rana, Roc,
Here’s a partial list of good heroes for NT beyond Level 30. Generally they are instant healers, over healers, minion generators, Stacking buffs (e.g. Mireweave) and direct damage. I also list heroes with self-inflicted debuffs that get reduced by the Erratic Time Chamber (Lady Woolerton for example). In general, slow and average SS heroes with strong damage / healing have an advantage due to the Erratic Time Chamber limiting buffs and debuffs. Pure damage dealers like Lianna, Thorne, and Quintus are good compared to crippled status effect heroes.
Red: Boldtusk, Sumle, Azlar, Baldur, Elena, G. Kong, Kestrel, Noor, Queen of Hearts, Red Hood.
Blue: Jott, Mireweave, Isarnia, Lepus, Raffaele, Skadi, Snow White, Thorne
Green: Jack O’Hare, Costumed Kashrek, Heimdall, Horghall, Lady of the Lake, Lianna, Mother North, Ratatoskr,
Purple: Rigard, Killhare, Bera, Freya, Mok-Arr, Kunchen, Quintus, Ursena.
Yellow: Gullinbursti, Lady Woolerton, Delilah, Justice, Musashi, Sir Roostley, Vivica
There are a lot of heroes that fall into the middle ground where their normally 4 turn status effect is cut down to 2 turns. But given what will probably be your lack of other options, you should hoard them for Level 31+. Decent Heal over Time heroes should be strongly considered, even if their effect only lasts 2 turns. Rigard, in particular, is someone you should hoard for upper levels of the Tower. I was using costumed Rigard without emblems up to Level 48. My Rigard tended to have high level troops to increase his toughness so you may want to save any emblemed Rigards, or any emblemed healers for that matter, for as late in the Tower as you can.
Important note on strategy. Because all of the usual mana/SS saboteurs (Proteus, Hel, Merlin, Peters, etc.) get reduced down to 1 turn, using mana control to lock down the bosses’ SS will not be a viable strategy. The other popular strategy with AoE hitting bosses is to use Cyprian, Boril and any reflection / riposte heroes to counterattack the bosses to death. Cobalt’s and Sapphire’s SS each have a fairly good chance of bypassing defense buffs, including counterattack. Onyx’s SS dispels and prevents buffs from being placed on your heroes. While this alone doesn’t rule out counterattack as a viable strategy, it makes it tough to pull off. On top of that, the Ninja bosses do not necessarily fire when they reach their first Charge level. The game randomizes when they fire once they reach 1x charge. Combined with the limited duration of riposte / reflection buffs and now that strategy is really dead at the higher levels of the Tower.
Carpet bombing could still be a way to beat the Tower, but the Fragile Floor reduces your payload of battle items. Even if you maxed the number of Arrows, Axes, Meteors and Dragon Attacks, you would only deal about 3,000 points of damage + some fire DoT from the Dragons. The bosses at the highest levels of the Tower all have 4,600+ HP. That 1,600+ HP gap is not an insurmountable hurdle to cross but it sure is risky if you don’t have your SS charged and diamond ready to pop.
This more or less leaves old fashioned color stacking and leveraged attack buffs / defense debuffs. While the latter does get crippled by the Erratic Time Chamber it does work. And if you plan your Oni Blessings wisely, your Average and Slow SS heroes can recharge fast enough. Speaking of which…
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Oni Blessings. You do not get any bonuses from clearing Oni Stones from the game board, but you do get to choose from Oni Blessings every third Level of the Tower. Some are more useful than others and someone will probably map out all of the options at each occurrence. Here’s my strategy for choosing Oni Blessings.
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Choose the +5% mana generation Blessing every time it is available until you reach +15%. This is roughly the same as giving all your heroes level 29 mana troops. You probably could go even higher if you always choose the mana generation Blessing when offered. This bonus stacks with your mana troops. Note that a total of +20% will charge Slow SS in 10 tiles, +25% will charge Average SS in 8 tiles, +34% will charge Fast SS in 6 tiles and Slow SS in 9 tiles.
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Choose the +5% critical hit Blessing if the mana generation Blessing isn’t available. This Blessing also stacks with crit troops. Once you get mana generation blessings high enough, you may as well take the critical hit Blessing and use only crit troops to maximize your chances of critical hits with tile damage. This critical hit chance is always on and is not crippled by the Erratic Time Chamber so you may as well take advantage of it. You won’t have many other ways of leveraging damage bonuses within the Erratic Time Chamber.
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Choose +5% mana injection every 5th turn if neither of the above are also available. Arguably this mana injection might be more valuable than the crit Blessing. You are going to have to experiment on your own.
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If none of the three above blessings are offered, choose whatever fits your play style the best. Note that there is a Blessing that spawns minions for your team every 5 turns. Those minions could displace more valuable minions like Queen of Heart’s Taunt minion or Lady of the Lake’s mana stealing minions. You cannot take back or change out any of the Blessings once you’ve chosen them. Plan ahead. I typically chose attack bonuses and HP injections.