Is defense a top stat in dark deity 1?

I reached chapter 11 and im noticing my characters dodge a lot but I saw some posts that they nerfed dodge once you reach higher lecels. I also noticed high defense units take little to no damage both yours and the enemy. So i started taking promotions with higher defensive stat. There are more and more enemies each stage so im guessing defense will get even more important. And im also noticing now I have more characters than I cns bring into battle now. Probably best to stick to stronger characters and ignore thr lower level characters?