Into the Jungle solo Fire Guide (Fire Season Nightmare Challenge 5.3)

[RadicalX]

Introduction

Hello there,

After receiving several questions about this, I decided to make a short guide on solving the current Nightmare challenge of solo-ITJ with a pure Fire deck. The challenge is definitely one of the hardest ones the Fire season has to offer, but with some tips and tricks it is certainly managable. I will mostly try to cover the general concepts you need to understand in order to solve the map consistently. For those who just want to see a replay, I attached my personal solution at the end of this post.

In terms of deck building I will try to cover alternative options for expensive cards, whenever possible. Based on my experience, the only completely mandatory card from a high price range would be Mine (fortunately no charges required), even though I would heavily suggest running Shrine of War as well. Every other rare/ultra-rare can be replaced in some form. 

The goal of this guide is about offering a consistent way to clear all three camps before the timer runs out. Theoretically, it is also possible to lean towards defending at later stages of the game as Tower of Flames, Pyromaniac (r) and Morklay Trap are reasonably powerful buildings, but this would be significantly slower and much more difficult to pull off. Every missed timer can potentially lead to a loss. After you learned how to clear the three camps in time consistently, it will be much easier to solve this challenge.

T1 Stage

Required Cards: Strikers*, Mine, Suppression, Blaster Cannon

*Can be replaced by Nomad (green), but I highly recommend using Strikers for this map. For those who don't know, damage reduction buffs get amplified on targets with unity effects like "Gang Up" making them almost twice as effective. This allows Strikers to scale as tanks into T2 when paired with Fire Force (blue), making them a stronger choice than Nomad on this map. 

Task 1: Defending the waves

First of all you need to deal with two waves attacking your main base right away. Dealing with this isn't difficult per se, but when playing alone you want to spent as little power for your defense as possible. It is important to make a lot of early progress on the map and ideally clear some power wells to make up for the economy deficit as quickly as possible.  

The important thing you need to know is that each of these two waves respawns two minutes after being cleared. Keeping one unit alive will delay the respawn of the entire wave. Clear the eastern wave first with Strikers and your Amii Phantoms, but keep one of the Maulers alive. The wall at your main base will keep it busy for minutes and you don't need to worry about additional attacks as long as the Mauler stays alive. Do NOT do this freeze with one of the ranged units as they are much more prone to follow your units around the side path instead of staying at the wall. It is the preferred method for speedrunning, but overly complicated for a normal playthrough. Also make sure you don't lose a unit until you have 4 Strikers. Once the Gang Up effect is active, it will be way easier to keep them alive. You can then clear the wave to your left entirely afterwards, you will be in time to deal with respawns without spending additional power besides keeping the wall. 

Task 2: Clearing the first camps

After getting 5 Strikers you can move on to clear the first southern camp. I recomming using one mine for the melee units while charging onto the Spirit Hunters or some of the other small units. Use the Amii Phantoms to clear the spawn building quickly as the units do respawn quite early. If you keep this in mind, the camp is quite easy to clear. 

Now there should be enough time to clear the camp to your left as it provides two power wells. Getting these early will make your life easier at later stage of the game. Prepare a Blaster Cannon for the Mana Wings. It can also be used to heal up your damaged units. Pull the nature units away from the Living Towers, so you don't have to deal with them at the same time. I would recommend pulling with a phantom as it doesn't get knocked around by the Living Tower. Use one Mine for the Fathom Lord and focus it after pulling. The Blaster Cannon will deal with the Mana Wings and can be destroyed afterwards. At last you can take out the buildings and use the Amii Phantoms to get those power wells quickly.

From here the wave you cleared at your main base will be respawned, you can just use your army to clear it again. Do not spend any additional power. It is not necessary and will be needed later on. The Mauler used for the Freeze can be ignored as it just dies to the orb eventually. 

Task 3: Razorleaf fight

Fighting a buffed XL unit on T1 seems intimidating at first glance, but Fire has a very easy solution to this. You can stack three Mines in right in front of the Razorleaf as the explosion radius is larger than the spell placement blocking. The Razorleaf won't move, but you can pull the Dryads through those Mines to trigger them. This is already enough damage to kill the Razorleaf even without focussing it at all. Upon placing the third Mine you can engage with your Strikers (I usually have 6 of them at this point) and run right to the main camp. The Razorleaf might not respawn, but the Dryads and Mauler do, so getting rid of that spawn building should be the priority. Cast Suppression on the Living Towers. If you are fast you can suppress before the tower gets its first shot. You can keep the Phantoms out of the fight for safety reasons, but using them to clear the Strangleholds can save a few seconds. Now you can unlock your T2. 

T2 Stage

Required Cards: Fire Force, Wildfire*, Firedancer**, Pyromaniac (red), 

*Wildfire can be replaced by Lavafield. Having a damage spell at this stage of the game is important and Wildfire is certainly the stronger choice (more damage for lower cost), but alternatively this can be played whenever I mention the use of Wildfire. 

**Firedancer can be replaced by Firestalker. It's slower due to inferior building dps, but you gain good S knockback when fighting units and as its base mode is melee, Firestalker will benefit from the Fire Force buff. If you delay your engagement on the second main camp and add 1-2 extra units, you should be fine. 

Task 1: Preparations for the next stage

While building T2 you should use the side path to get the three Windweaver squads from the jungle path to your left. Then move back to your main base. Once your T2 is finished, cast Fire Force (blue) on one of your Strikers right away, keep all of them until T3. On a sidenote: There is a small bug, which probably will be fixed eventually, but right now the Amii Phantoms do count as melee units. They most likely won't get in danger here anyways, but the bonus damage reduction being an extra safety net is a nice bonus.

For the solo run it's probably best to ignore the Eastern and Southeastern camps for the entire game, so you need to continously defend against waves here. Rebuild the right wall and build Towers to defend. At first one Pyromaniac will be enough, but once the Island starts attacking, there needs to be a stronger defense. 

Task 2: Clearing the way to the second camp

The next two camps are quite easy to clear as long as you keep an eye on two things: 1) Always use Suppression onto the Mindweavers. 2) Do not forget about the wave. If it overlaps while you are in the middle of a fight things might get tough. At this point you should have the power to use Wildfire to support your attack. You will get two additional power wells on the way, take them as soon as possible. If you have some spare power afterwards, you can start summoning Fire Dancers to progress more quickly and get rid of any annoying structure on the way. The second camp has the spawner for one of the waves, so you can leave the left side of your main base unguarded for the rest of the game. 

10 Minutes into the game the Island will start sending waves to your main base. These will always hit the right wall, so you need to build more Towers there. At the bottom of your wall you might want to consider a second Pyromaniac to defend against the ground units and one Blaster Cannon at the top as there will be Parasite Swarms aswell. If you use only one Pyromaniac you probably need Wildfire against the big waves of Drones and Deep Ones, otherwise you might get in trouble once the wall goes down. Always make sure to repair these buildings between fights as these waves will hit your main base for the rest of your game and losing your orb might lead to a loss. 

Task 3: The Bramblethorn fight

Once you have 6 Strikers and 5 Fire Dancers and enough power for one Wildfire you can start fighting the second main camp. You can just pull everything by destroying the Healing Gardens with your Fire Dancers from a safe distance. The key unit to considere here is the Bramblethorn. This Tempest-like unit deals massive damage over a long distance and roots on hit. Your Strikers can tank the damage, but once your Phantoms start getting hit, things will be dangerous. It is important to note, that unlike the units the Bramblethorns do not respawn after getting taken down. Bursting them early with Wildfire and unit focus is beneficial for that reason. Keep your Strikers close together and let them tank everything for your ranged units. Use Wildfire whenever possible. Move your Firedancers to the top and destroy the Living Towers one by one until you can focus the spawn building. From here you probably win rather easily, so keep an eye on your main base and check what happened to the wave from the Island.

T3 Stage

Required cards depend on strategy:

1) The Spitfire strategy: Spitfire, Hellhound*, Shrine of War, Unity (green), Dying Breed (purple), Morklay Trap (optional), Disenchant (optional)**

*Can be replaced by Juggernaut or Sunreaver (low budget)

**Can be replaced by Gladiatrix (also counts for strategy 2) 

2) The Hellhound strategy

Hellhound, Aura of Pain, Shrine of War, Unity (green), Disenchant, Morklay Trap, Disenchant

3) The camp skip strategy

Any melee unit, Unity (green), Inferno, Magma Hurler, Eruption, Scorched Earth (red) (optional)

Task 1: Clearing the Hurler boss (strategy 2 & 3) and the first camp 

After taking the power well and T3, build two Shrines of War and keep the buff up at all times. Void return is such a powerful mechanic and enables much more frequent spell usage. You can sacrifice your Strikers and Firedancers to get more power for T3 units. Clearing the Magma Hurler Boss opens up a path to ignore the fully buffed Razorleaf later on. This is good for the previously mentioned strategies 2 and 3. If you have either Hellhound or Virtuoso, this can be done quickly as they are L-counters and the Hurler Boss only takes less damage from ranged units. The next camp is rather weak, so you can clear it easily. If you have Dying Breed, use it to generate some extra power, also wait for SoW activation to get void return.

Keep an eye on your main base and always repair your buildings. The attacks will continue as there is no time to destroy these spawners, but at least they won't grow any stronger. Your T3 orb will be attacked by Energy Parasites from the River. A Blaster Cannon at this position does solve this, but also needs to be repaired afterwards.  

Task 2: The Abyssal Warder camp (difficult)

This is probably the hardest camp the map has to offer. Apart from the triple XL units with formidable dps here are numerous mechanics you need to consider here. 

1. The Primeval Watcher's Statis Field: An AoE cc, which will be cast right at the start. It lowers your upfront damage significantly. 

2. The Grove Spirits and their Revive mechanic. This will be cast onto some of the XL units, making the fight extremely tedious, especially when cast on the Abyssal Warders. This buff can be removed by Disenchant. 

3. The Abyssal Warders: Apart from their tankiness due to summoning smaller versions on death the Crystal Spikes are a huge threat as they circumvent damage reductions, which can kill units through unity+fire force.

4. Mark of the Keeper prevents spell casting at the camp, so it's worth pulling units away from it.

5. The Spawner: Will resummon the Abyssal Warders quite quickly, so pulling to far bears a risk. 

You need to approach this fight differently depending on the strategy you are using. Either way you should collect some power before taking this fight. Morklay Traps or maybe even Tower of Flames can be used for extra damage on a pull and you need a plan to destroy the spawner here. When playing Spitfire you want to pair them with melee units like Hellhound or Juggernaut, which tank the upfront damage. You can pull by destroying one of the Towers from huge range, ideally the Mind Weaver as it's in front of the spawn building), then focus the Primeval Watcher right away. The Primeval Watcher does not respawn, whereas the Abyssal Warders do. Then try to focus the spawner if possible and use unity to keep your units alive. Once it's destroyed you can play hit and run and slowly destroy the camp. If you play for Hellhounds I recommend stacking Aura of Pain, a quite underrated spell with incredible damage potential and pull the XL units into morklay traps to weaken the XL units. Then focus the spawn building and finish the fight. The ramp up on the damage reduction will make them incredibly tanky and as long as you keep an eye on Crystal Spikes and disenchant the Revive, this fight will be managable if you have at least 6 Hellhounds. 

Now the slowest, but also easiest strategy to deal with this camp is to ignore it completely. You just stack a bunch of units, ideally bait out the Statis Field and try to reach the other side of the camp with at least one unit. You have to clear it later on, but prioritizing to clear the last spawner will guarantee you a win as this is the last hard loss condition which exists. Then you can clear this camp later with unlimited time to create a path for the Amii Phantoms. This can also be achieved with low budget strategies like the classic Magma Hurler stacking. 

Task 3: The Razorleaf camp

If you cleared the Magma Hurler boss you can just use the new path and circumvent this one entirely (melee/skip strategy), but with Spitfires you can use melee units to bait and tank the razorleaf shots and focus it with Spitfires. Always try to resummon melee units to make sure your Spitfires don't get attacked, otherwise it will be devastating. From here you mainly fight Living Towers, that can be easily outranged or tanked by Hellhounds. 

If you use the Spitfire strategy it is recommended to go into the south-western cave and kill the swamp drakes. Not only does this stop the Energy Parasite waves from spawning, it also will give you a unique angle onto the final camp to destroy it in time. 

Task 4: The final timer

If you destroy this camp in time, the map is essentially won. It can be achieved in different ways, but difficulty usually depends on remaining time and your performance in previous encounters. If you use the Spitfire strategy, you can circumvent most stuff by flying across the River and attack the camp from there. For killing the units at the cave you will also get some free Swamp Drakes, which provide an additional health pool for Unity. Focus the spawner directly, it's fine to lose all units for it as long as it goes down in time. The Hellhound strategy can just take down the camp directly. Disenchant the revive from the Forst Elder and focus it with unity being active all the time. Suppression on the Howling Shrine is a game changer here. You can just use a brute force approach through this camp with Aura of Pain stacking. When playing the camp skip strategy you just build a massive army, and charge onto the spawner. Use unity (and fire force) to keep your units alive, then cast Scorched Earth, Inferno and Eruptions onto the Spawner. A small trick to remain ground presence for spells a little bit longer is to summon units right before losing your army as they are untargetable for a very short time depending on their spawn animation. As long as you destroy the spawner in time, you will win the game eventually as you have unlimited time from here to clear the remaining camps.

T4 Stage 

Recommended cards: Moloch*, Fire Dragon, Bloodthirst, Fire Sphere

*Other unit card combinations will work aswell, but Moloch is the most reliable one as it makes your army virtually unkillable with unity. Comet Catcher is a good and reliable alternative to an army based approach. 

Final Task: The Boss Fight

This is the easiest part of the map as there is no time limit anymore (still keep an eye on your main base and repair your towers). But to make the boss fight as smooth as possible, you need to clear the Living Towers first. This can be achieved by building a large XL unit army and supporting it with unity + bloodthirst. If you are afraid of running out of unity charges, you can guarantee full unity uptime by playing both affinities. Otherwise, Comet Catcher is a great tool to make permanent progress step by step. Once the Living Towers are destroyed you can enter the boss fight and focus Terra until the Howling Shrines lose their immunity. Switch their focus onto them and finish off Terra afterwards. If you reached this point, congratulations for finishing the achievement! 

Replay and final words

Here is my replay for the map (used the Hellhound strategy for T3). Execution wasn't flawless, but it follows the strategy I described above. If you have any suggestions, further advices or questions, please let me know. I will try to improve this guide whenever possible and I hope this can help lots of players to tackle this challenge. 

ITJ_solo_26min.pmv

[This Is Halloween_2]

Great guide !

I would emphasize a few things :

1) If you fail to « spawn trap » the very 1st wave of the game on the East, it’s a restart.

2) For the 2 T1 wells, I prefer 2 mines. There’s a kind of statue that’s part of the map decor of the path leading the 2 wells. The blaster canon should be placed slightly behind, and the mines slightly ahead. That’s approximately the correct distance between the blaster, mines, and canon.

3) If you fail to spawn trap the west wave, expect it to hit you around 4:15 - 4:30, and plan a mine accordingly. If you can wipe it with spells without coming back to def, you can spawn trap the mana wing of that 2nd wave.

4) To place the mines to kill the razorleaf, you need to place a phantom just behind the wall at the top of the entrance, that’s where you’ll get the ground presence needed. You need 6 strikers to win on that camp, 5 will die.

5) For the second camp, there’s 2 lane and a healing garden in the middle. Place 1 morklay trap to cover bottom one, place your strikers to charge through the top one. Then snipe the garden (stalkers or fire dancer), charge top, blast the bottom bramble thorn with trap, and some range to finish it. The top one will be killed by a wildfire. Snipe the spawner with your dancer/stalkers.

6) For the abyssal camp, use dancer/stalker/spitfire to snipe the spawner during the fight.

7) Sniping the last camp by killing the swamp drake camp bottom left, and then taking the river path with them and your spitfire + unity to make a suicide charge is the easiest way.

Edited June 10 by This Is Halloween_2