Meiling

Meiling is a mid-game unit who serves as a natural team tank. Her health is extremely high, and her defense is strong, but her speed is low, meaning that she will frequently take her turn after everyone else has. While her defense stays unaffected by her unit skill, she is still a favorite team staple due to how well she holds up against constant attack and because of how well she works together with numerous other units.

Where to Obtain
Meiling and her spell cards are acquired from the Main Quest "Scarlet Devil Mansion Main Gate," which can be played on Easy difficulty by units level 5 and above.

Strategy
Meiling is a highly effective team tank, but because she cannot buff or heal herself, she works best when Reimu or Sakuya are present in her party. In particular, Meiling is highly compatible with Reimu's Duplex Barrier, which allows her to take a higher amount of damage for the whole party before her unit skill gives out, and Sakuya's Tea Time, which will reactivate her unit skill if her health is healed above 50%. Overlapping multiple Duplex Barriers and Tea Times, or simply using one of each, will amplify Meiling's effectiveness as a damage sponge, and using Duplex Barrier on Meiling has the added bonus of adding power to Wind Chime of Colorful Rainbow. Meiling herself will always avert any source of damage to herself, be it normal attacks, multi-hit spell cards, and activated enemy counters. Even spell cards that normally throw an attack at every party member will only hit Meiling, reducing their danger significantly. Her Colorful Rain, while only activating against physical attacks, is still a highly effective crowd control card that, like Eating, can be overlapped with another, more active spell card. Extreme Color Typhoon is a powerful card befitting of its title that keeps its multi-hit stack even if it is deactivated. It is a smart move to activate Extreme Colorful Typhoon early on in a quest so by the time one's party has reached the boss, Meiling's spell card will be packed with multiple strong shots every time she acts. Meiling still has the glaring weakness of her low speed, however, so having Sakuya apply speed debuffs or hinder the enemy's behavior bar will help to prevent Meiling from being stunned into inaction by status effects or losing too much health too early. Also, Meiling's unit skill means that she will frequently be affected by status effects, debuffs, and Tenshi's Sword of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception with its buff-canceling effect. In order to ensure that Meiling's multi-hit attacks reach their full potential, it is important to rid the enemy team of units like Rumia and Cirno first. Rumia in particular is a strong counter to Meiling's Extreme Color Typhoon, and she makes Meiling ineffective besides Colorful Rain.