The strongest units in All Star Tower Defense X right now are the high-cost hybrid carries — the ones that pair wide splash damage with enough single-target punch to kill a boss — followed closely by damage-aura supports that multiply whatever your carries already do. The catch is that no single unit tops every mode: the S-tier list for Infinite looks different from the S-tier list for Story farming, Raids, and modifier Challenges. This list ranks units by damage, range, utility, and mode performance, and weights those four criteria differently per mode, because a 40-stud single-target nuker and a 25-stud AoE carry are not interchangeable pieces.
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How the ranking is weighted
Every tier placement below comes from four criteria, and the weighting changes with the mode you’re building for:
- Damage (40%): DPS at max upgrade, plus damage type — single-target, splash, multi-hit, or true damage that ignores defence.
- Range and coverage (25%): placement range in studs plus splash radius. Range is the hidden stat: two units with identical DPS are not equal if one covers a third of the track and the other covers a corner.
- Utility (20%): damage buffs, defence shred, stuns, slows, air targeting, and cash generation.
- Mode performance (15%): how the unit behaves in Infinite, Story, Raid, and Challenge maps, where wave HP scaling and enemy speed differ sharply.
Stat bands below reflect what the in-game unit info panel shows at max upgrade. Exact values shift with balance patches, so treat the numbers as bands rather than fixed figures, and re-check after any patch the developers flag as a balance pass.
Quick tier reference
| Tier | Role profile | Example unit classes | Typical range | Typical full upgrade cost | Strongest modes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | Hybrid AoE + single-target carry | Top banner carries (Saitama-, Gojo-, Sukuna-class units) | 25–40 studs | 45,000–90,000 | Infinite, Raid, Challenge |
| S | Damage-aura support | Buffer units granting a +% damage aura | 20–30 stud aura | 20,000–50,000 | All modes |
| A | Pure AoE / splash | Wide-splash carries, multi-hit sweepers | 22–32 studs | 30,000–60,000 | Story, Infinite waves 1–20 |
| A | Boss single-target | High per-hit, slow attack speed | 18–28 studs | 35,000–70,000 | Raid, Challenge bosses |
| B | Debuff / crowd control | Slow, freeze, stun, defence shred | 15–25 studs | 10,000–25,000 | Challenge, boss maps |
| B | Early single-target | Cheap, fast-attacking units | 18–25 studs | 8,000–20,000 | Story, early Infinite |
| C | Eco / cash generation | Money units and passive earners | 12–20 studs | 3,000–10,000 | First 10 waves of any mode |
S-Tier: what actually earns the slot
The hybrid carry
An S-tier carry does two jobs without a second placement: it clears a wave with splash and it still takes meaningful chunks off a boss. The reason this matters is placement slots. Most maps give you a limited number of spots that cover a long stretch of track, and a unit that only does one of those jobs forces you to spend a slot on the other. Top banner carries in this bracket typically sit in the 25–40 stud range with splash radii of 8–15 studs, which is enough to cover a corner plus the straight after it.
Trade-off: full upgrade costs of 45,000–90,000 cash mean these units are dead weight for the first half of a run. You cannot open with one.
The damage-aura support
Supports do not appear on damage charts, which is why players underrate them. A buffer with a 20–30 stud aura granting a flat percentage damage boost to every unit inside it effectively re-prices your entire board. If your carries are putting out 1,400 combined DPS and the aura adds 25%, that support just produced 350 DPS for one placement slot — cheaper per point of damage than almost any carry upgrade in the game.
Trade-off: an aura does nothing on its own, so it is worthless in the first 10 waves when you only have one or two units down.
A-Tier: specialists that win specific maps
Pure AoE carries and dedicated boss killers sit here because they are excellent at exactly one thing. Wide-splash sweepers handle Infinite waves 1–20 faster than anything else and farm Story maps in less time, but they fall off hard once boss HP scaling outpaces their per-hit damage. Boss single-target units do the opposite: they shred Raid bosses and Challenge bosses, then leak normal waves because their attack speed cannot keep up with a swarm.
If you own both, the standard fix is to run one of each and let the buffer cover the gap. If you own only one, pair it with crowd control — a slow or stun keeps enemies inside the specialist’s range long enough for its damage to matter.
B-Tier and C-Tier: where they still win
B-tier units are not bad units; they are units whose value is conditional. Crowd control is the clearest example: a freeze or slow effect that adds no damage can still be the difference between clearing and leaking on a Challenge map with fast enemies, because it doubles the time your carries have to shoot. Per the game’s official patch notes, CC durations and boss immunity to certain effects are frequently adjusted, so a CC unit’s tier moves more than a carry’s does.
C-tier eco units are the exception to tier logic entirely. They rank low because they deal almost no damage, but they generate the cash that buys your S-tier carries. In a 30-wave Infinite run, an eco unit placed at wave 1 and upgraded through wave 8 typically pays for itself three to five times over.
The damage-per-cost calculation that decides your build order
Tier lists tell you what to own. This tells you what to buy first in a match. Divide DPS at max upgrade by total investment:
| Unit | Total investment | DPS at max | DPS per 1,000 cash | Slots used |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap AoE (B-tier) | 9,000 | 420 | 46.7 | 1 |
| Mid carry (A-tier) | 32,000 | 950 | 29.7 | 1 |
| Top carry (S-tier) | 52,000 | 1,400 | 26.9 | 1 |
The cheap unit is 1.74× more cash-efficient (46.7 ÷ 26.9) than the S-tier carry. But look at the last column: all three use one slot. When a wave’s HP exceeds what your cheap units can burn through, efficiency stops mattering and raw DPS per slot becomes the only number that counts.
That produces a concrete rule: build efficient early, build dense late. Place eco and one or two cheap AoE units, upgrade them only to level 2–3, then stop investing and bank for a single S-tier carry. The final upgrade tier on any carry usually costs 30–40% of its total price while adding roughly 15–20% more DPS — the worst cash-per-damage purchase available, so buy it last, after your board is already covered.
Team-building: the five-slot core
Most competitive teams reduce to the same shape: one eco unit, one to two AoE carries, one boss killer, one support, and one flex slot for CC or a second carry. Cash allocation follows the same pattern — roughly 60–70% of everything you earn goes into carries, 15–20% into the support, and 10–15% into eco and CC combined.
Two failure modes account for most lost runs. The first is an all-damage team with no CC, which leaks on fast-enemy Challenge maps. The second is over-investing in eco past wave 10, when the cash spent upgrading the money unit would have bought more damage than the eco unit will ever return.
Decision matrix: match the team to your situation
| Your situation | Priority | Team shape | Skip for now |
|---|---|---|---|
| New account, small gem stash | Cheap efficiency | Eco + cheap AoE + early single-target | Banner pulls and 50k+ upgrades |
| Story farming for gems | Clear speed | Two AoE sweepers + one support | Boss killers |
| Infinite past wave 25 | Scaling and range | Two to three carries + buffer + CC | Eco units |
| Raid boss | Single-target DPS | Two boss killers + buffer + shred | Splash-only carries |
| Challenge with modifiers | Utility | CC + buffer + one carry | Mono-damage comps |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best unit in All Star Tower Defense X?
There is no single best unit, because the top hybrid carries and the top damage-aura supports are both S-tier for different reasons. If you can only invest in one, pick the hybrid AoE carry, since it is the only role that performs acceptably in Infinite, Raid, and Challenge maps without a second unit covering its weakness. Supports score higher per placement slot, but only once you already have carries worth buffing.
Are banner and limited units always better than standard ones?
No. Limited units usually have a higher ceiling but a worse cost curve, which makes them weak on short maps and awkward on a new account. Several standard-pool AoE and CC units stay A- or B-tier indefinitely because their upgrade costs are low enough to reach max tier before wave 15. Check the total upgrade cost, not just the max DPS, before deciding a banner unit outclasses your current team.
Is range or damage more important?
Range, in most cases. A unit with 30% less DPS but 10 extra studs of range often produces more total damage per wave because it is firing for longer stretches of the track. Damage only wins outright on boss maps, where enemies walk a predictable path into a fixed kill zone and coverage stops mattering.
Do I need supports, or should I just stack more damage?
Stack supports once your carries are upgraded to their second-highest tier. A 25% damage aura over three carries is worth more than a fourth carry in most maps, and it costs one slot instead of a full unit investment. Below that upgrade level, supports underperform because there is not enough base damage to multiply.
How often does this tier list change?
Meaningfully after any patch the developers label as a balance pass — typically CC durations, splash radii, and boss immunity rules move first, and carries move last. Between patches, the tier order is stable enough to plan around. Re-check your carries’ range and cost values after each update, since those two stats shift the ranking more than raw damage does.
Should I sell units to build a better team?
Only sell duplicates of units you already have at max upgrade, and only when the sale funds a unit that fills a role your team is missing. Selling a unique B-tier CC unit to upgrade a carry usually makes a team worse, because CC is the role with the fewest substitutes and the hardest to replace mid-run.
