So, what's the usual strategy when upgrading units?

[Aldath]

I'm currently on Hell's Kitchen, and I've been relying on a bleed team a little too much. I recently started switching teams depending on enemy weaknesses, but the problem is that enkephalin runs out too fast and the Exp Luxcavation gives just a few tickets, so I've been unable to diversify my teams despite having must of them at Uptie III.

What's the best strategy to keep other units on par?

[Evtushenko]

once you stop doing story for a while you don't have to spend energy and thus you can box it freely every day
that's the moment when you stockpile on it (at least it happened to me). before that yeah there won't be enough

they also give you a fair amount of energy and tickets during events like the current christmas one which end like in five seconds though. some people think that we'll get another event with similar little rewards during Chinese new year (start of february) or limbus anniversary (end of february), so you'll probably get your free extra energy soon enough either way!!!

[Iggy the Unwise]

Higher tiers of EXP lux give a good amount of exp per module and, unfortunately, they are the best at leveling up your units cost vise. My best advice is to rush story content until next tier of lux then farm it a bit, repeat. But on the brighter side you can beat canto 1-4 with units up to lvl 30, canto 5 will require at least 35 if you don’t want to suffer.

[A5G_Reaper]

Instead of fully upgrading one ID at a time, upgrade your core team concurrently. The higher levels require an obnoxious amount of exp tickets but you gain the same amount of stats per level.

That said, it's best to have a single general-purpose team that you fully upgrade before branching into specific types. They wont be the best, but at least they wouldn't stumble into a lineup that is entirely resistant to their damage output.

As for upties, you'll get plenty of threads when season ends. No need to rush it.

PS: You can use lunacy to recharge once a day for cheap. The resources gained from using the recharge is generally better than 1/5 of a single pull it would otherwise afford you.

[Reptiloid]

Toil in luxcavation fields. Upgrade your main jack of all trades team. For story content that shouldn't be a problem. The good one would be a charge or sinking team for that. Then, well, hoard xp tickets and experiment

[Shirasaka Yoko (Hat World)]

Level your best units somewhat evenly, trying to keep up with the recommended level the game tells you.

Generally, said units are:

Spicebush/Pequod Yi
LCR/Zwei/Regret/7/N Faust
W/Middle/Nom Don
Base/LCCB/R.B./W Ryōshū
[No Meursault is truly worth leveling.]
Base/KK/Tingtang/Hook/D Hong Lu
Base/7/R/Pequod Heathcliff
R (uptie 4)/Liu/Boatworks Ishmael
Rosespanner/D Rodion
Base/N/C Sinclair
Base/C/Molar Outis
Pirate Gregor* [You're better off using other units, but at least he's not Meursault.]

[SIGNAL]

Originally posted by Aldath:

enkephalin runs out too fast and the Exp Luxcavation gives just a few tickets, so I've been unable to diversify my teams despite having must of them at Uptie III.

What's the best strategy to keep other units on par?

Tragically, EXP Luxcavation grinding and levelling characters evenly is pretty much how it goes. If you want to farm more often, it's alright to pop some Enkephalin boxes or Lunacy for an Enkephalin refill, since the cost isn't that high.

Fortunately, it's entirely possible to beat many stages with fewer than the max number of sinners, so you can focus on levelling only those few ace sinners immediately, allowing you to still progress through the story while you level the rest of your ideal team over time

In focused fights, it's good to bring IDs with evade skills, since evade carries over to the next attack and can be activated immediately by assigning it to the fastest attacker (Make sure the attacker is actually targeting that ID). Using less sinners can be good here, since you can build up multiple skill slots.

In non-focused fights, tanky IDs, AoE attacks, and health regen are recommended. It may be good to avoid killing enemies immediately to build up skill slots for the next wave, if there is one. A full party is much better here, though, since you're expected to take one-sided attacks due to forced clashing with the slowest enemies first.