Whats in a Solo Unit? Part 2!

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Check out the previous post Amino and YouTube!

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    Welcome to a more expansive guide on soloing! Last time I did a showcase on 2 Soloist units and gave some general tips on soloing. This time, we'll be going more indepth, explaing some more and reviewing another Solo unit.

Guide

•Solo Tips

•Hardest Maps

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•Solo Tips•

Identifying the Enemy

    Before anything, you want to scout out the enemy. This includes enemy skills, and reinforcements. An intresting thing to note is that all generic units have the same stats. They usually come with different skills for every map. Most of these generic stats can be found over at Gamepedia. This can be helpful in deciding if your unit can deal with most of the enemies.

    Obviously, you won't be able to take on all units on your own. Whether its Triangle disadvantage or Effective against bonuses, there will be a unit that counters your unit. Finding ways to counter these units is a good place to start. Different situations call for different skills.

Skills That Help

    Skills don't really make too much of a difference when it come to solos, as its possible to pull it off without any SI. Although some units can Solo without skills, you may need to use skills for solos. Skills can vary for every unit, as they all have different outcomes. There are some skills that can usually help a person:

Tanking

•Distant/Close Defense

•Smoke Skills

•Guard

•Distant/Close Counter

•Carrot Weapons

•Guard Bow/Serpent Tome

•Aether

Clearing

•"Effective Against" Weapons

•"Wo Dao" Weapons

•Wrath

•AoE Specials

    These are just a few of the many skills that you can use to help. Of course, you won't always need these skills, as specific situations call for specific answers. These skills just generally help as they help a unit tank and get rid of enemies efficiently. Soloing is not ing a good unit to tank everyone, but more ing skills to create a favorable outcome. Most of the time, you will be equipping skills to deal with certain units. Sometimes you need DC to counter a few mages, and sometimes you need Close Def to tank certain units. Its all dependent on your situation.

Terrain Usage

    Knowing how to use the map to your advantage is also a key part to solos. Since you won't be able to take on all enemies at once, you need to filter out your targets to improve your chances of survival. Sometimes, map certain areas you can use to filter enemies.

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    Linus' map has an easy choke point where you can easily filter out incoming enemies. Other maps with reinforcements make it a challenge to filter out enemies. Some choke points won't work for all units, as some units can't take on the units at that point. It may require some moving around to filter enemies through the terrain, but it helps in finding the best setup for your unit.

AI Manipulation

    AI manipulation is the most important part to soloing. Even in normal play, we manipulate the AI to make the best outcome for our units. It is slightly different for solos, as you need to focus on controlling the enemy's movement and keep your proxy units out of the action. AI manipulation can be different, as some soloist use dancers as their proxy units. For this segment however, I'll be focusing on No Dancer solos. This will also be an oversimplification of this post by Verve, a Mia soloist (His YT). Go check him out, as he goes really indepth into this topic.

    There are several factors that go into an enemy's choice of action. Considering they don't have assist, they should follow these 3 steps when making a decsion. The enemy will always look for the best match up, often using an assist if they are at a disadvantage and another enemy can attack.

Position

    If the AI is in attacking range, they will decided on the best outcome for them. They will follow this order below when making a decsion on moves. Note that invisible bonuses do not affect an enem's move. That includes s and Owl Tomes.

•Defensive Tile (Y/N)

•Enemy Threat (Weaker)

•Moves via Guidance, WoM, etc. (Y/N)

•Terrain (Flier Tiles >Forest > Trench > Normal)

•Staying Still (Y/N)

•Tile Priority ( :arrow_up: > :arrow_right: > :arrow_left: > :arrow_down: )

Target

    When attacking, the AI will factor in bonuses. If there are multiple targets, the AI will choose the best match up. They prioritize Win > Draw > Loss. If there happen to be more than one of the same outcome, then the AI will act accordingly to this order:

•Debuffs to enemy's Def/Res via weapon or skill (Y/N)

•Damage (Highest Possible)

•Increase in enemy's special charge (Y/N)

•Target's Slot (Highest Possible)

Priority

    After the weakest target is chosen, the AI will decide who has the best match up against the enemy. If multiple attackers have the same outcome, they follow this order:

•Debuffs to enemy's Def/Res via weapon or skill (Y/N)

•Will receive a special debuff (such as Panic or Candelight) and survive (Y/N)

•Damage (Highest Possible)

•Increase in enemy's special charge (Y/N)

•Attacker's Movement (Highest Possible)

•Attacker's Slot (Highest Possible)

This is just the basic half of AI manipulation! I encourage you to check out Verve, as he explains this topic indepth and more extensively.

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•Hardest Maps•

For this segment, I interviewed MorphFE, Florina the Loli, and Redjurrac73. I asked them what their hardest solo challenge was.

•MorphFE

"Valter hands down. Although the LHBs are proving to be pretty difficult. Valter was a prime example of things being not as simple as 'throwing an OP hero into the battle'.

It took days to develop a strategy to keep the filler units safe from the turn based reinforcements on all sides as well as a flier friendly terrain.

As much as keeping the fillers safe is often the biggest hurdle, I’m glad the force deployment is there, it creates a challenge and some interesting strategies."

•Redjurrac73

"The hardest solo I've done? It's kind of hard to say. The one I having the most trouble with was the Fallen Takumi GHB, which took about a day for ALL soloers to complete. Even knowing that, I could only pull off a solo."

•Florina the Loli

"Julius, oh boy. I had to do a lot of skill changing and filler changing. My biggest threats were the Archer, Axe Unit, and Lancer Chad. I had to find a way to get the archer to come close enough to get attacked, but not hit Florina. Then it took me a while to find out that I needed to Atk Smoke the Lance Chad and hit him with a double Blazing Flame. The Axe unit also ripped right through Florina so I had to get rid of him as fast as I could."

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    Well I hoped you enjoyed this post! I'm sorry for being on hiatus regarding post, but I'm motivated more than ever to post! Thanks especially to the 3 soloers who helped me make this 2 part series. I hope you learned more about the game and the people who do this crazy stuff. Make sure to not dismiss a soloer as someone with not strategy, as thwy work really hard to make it possible. We actually have a lot of soloers on Amino! If you see them post a video, make sure to leave a like or a nice comment. Expect more post soon, unit next time!