Lonely Bezique's Guide to Solo SSDBlitz

It would be overly detailed and time consuming to write down every nuance of play. But these outlines should start those who are interested down the right track. Doing roughly the following I can get to round 100 with >95% money ball health. After that it's luck of the draw as to when two near successive rounds of jackbots turn up.

THE BASICS FOR TURRETS

1) Do not upgrade your own skills at the start, you need turrets as you cannot cover every lane. I only start buying skills for my pro after round 40-50, i.e. after I have built and upgraded all the turrets. There are exceptions to this e.g. assassin sword and support hack, but even then do not immediately upgrade the skills.

2) start with a rockit on the outer ring of in front of each lane and two lazer in the outer ring between the lanes.....

.....lazer balzers are better than rockits at these two positions as their range is longer. In later rounds the extra health of a rockit turret is more important however. Late on when the lazer blazers get destroyed replace them accordingly.

3) upgrade these turrets to level 3

4) build a shaveice on the front left position of the inner square of nubs. get it to level 3

5) build a lazer blazer at the back left of the outer ring. Again it's longer range makes it better than a rock-it. get it to level 3

6) build a longshot on the back right of the outer ring, lvl 3

7) build rock-its everywhere else, only build them when you've enough money to take them straight to lvl 2, you down want money wasted on them being destroyed. When you're playing solo money is less plentiful.

Sometimes I put a second shave ice in replace of the rock-it turret in the outer ring that faces the right lane. Overall this does less damage to bots, but it gives you more time to be away killing gapshots. Depending on the pro it pays off.

THE PRO

Notice the turret configuration is asymmetric. Concentrate your pro's efforts on the right bot lane. So long as you have this lane well covered the turret configuration will maximise turret firepower to the other two lanes, allowing them to take care of themselves. Almost all of the time. If anything gets through it'll only be the last bot or two of the wave.

Learn when gremlins spawn, kill them. This is crucial. Turrets do nearly no damage to them, but will shoot them instead of other bots leading to your money ball going down. Ignore bouncers and scramblers your turrets will deal with them. Get the gremlins, especially the uncloaked ones.

When gapshots spawn kill the ones that start on the left platform. Then assist your longshot with any on the right. Sometimes your longshot will get destroyed, but you ought to be able to afford to replace it.

Do not run off to the gapshot platform if gremlins are around, they will destroy turrets.

In the 80's a huge swarm of buzzers spawn. You want to make them go for you as that saves your turrets. Ideally You don't want to die, particularly if you have bacon. To deal with them The assassin should run in a large circleand cloak while recharging sprint. The tank is tough enough to take it with his flame gun on the go. The support will be fine if he remains next to his level 3 firebase. The other pros ought to stand near the pro spawn room dotting in and out of the red beams. This funnels the buzzers, they seem to get lost when they fly passed you into the room. Remember you get $8 per buzzer, shoot the little b*ggers.

Having the pro die in a solo game can be a huge problem, be cautious.

THE ANNIHILATOR

You do not need the annihilator until round 50, save your money.

You do need it on rounds 50, 60, 70, 80 and 89

Despite how things look, do not get tempted into using the annihilator on round 79, save it for number 80.

Round 89 can bring your money ball down, round 90's jackbot attack is weak. Use the annihilator on round 89.

Do not use the annihilator on round 100

Beyond round 100, use it when jackbots turn up...if it's charged.

SNIPPETS ON HOW TO RUN EACH PRO

The support should take advantage of his grapple often. Late on it is the only way he can hurt bots. Devote your time as the support to overhealing turrets and efficient hacking, your gun is not worth the effort. On single player I try and hack only 3 turrets, while it is possible to have 4 on the go, you have too many other tasks to attend to. Use your firebase to drum up cash.

Turrets with the support are tricky. I'm not convinced I have the optimal configuration yet. Currently I hack the fire base and plant it slightly to the right on the upper platform over the money ball, it supports lanes and eliminates high standing gapshots/jackbots. This allows you to replace the only longshot with a lazer blazer. I hack the only shave ice so that it covers all 3 lanes and then I replace the right hand lazer blazer at the foot of the raised platform with a rock-it and then hack it for more range.

The Assault's bomb is effective when placed on the upper right platform for swift removal of gapshots - it won't kill them though, be careful where they land. Do not upgrade to lvl 3 charge. lvl 2 is more effective at killing gremlins, which is very useful when they get close. The assault's jetpack will keep him alive and hopefully save your...bacon... if you've been lucky enough to pick some up.

The gunner's mortar gets gapshots easily without having to go up to the platform. Jackbots don't go down quickly.

The Tank can fully control a lane by a combination of grappling product grenades and well timed charges. This will give your other lanes more support from redundant turrets, you can make it to round 100 with 100% money ball health. On jackbot waves beyond round 100 I deploy to ensure I take full advantage of juice and yet still distract jackbots as much as possible from shooting turrets. Getting the tank to run over to the upper left platform is frustrating, but I sometimes have trouble lazering them from the ground, so I usually end up making the run over. Bacon and hence gold speed helps a lot.

The Assassin is at high risk of death, which is a nightmare when jackbots are around, use your cloak wisely. If you can get savvy enough to stay alive she's the best character for running solo. You can control your lane as well as the tank but also swiftly run to kill gapshots. Jackbots go down quicker too. Cloak when your health is low, your turrets will survive while you heal than they will while you come back to life. Don't be afraid to sword lunge from the platforms down to the lanes to save time.

The Sniper ....can go to hell, the useless piece of @#"~. It takes him a million bullets just to kill a gapshot, which you might naively expect to be the one thing he excels at in SSDB.

I'm partial to teaming up with anyone who thinks they can deal with that pesky round 100+ second wave of jackbots that comes along before the annihilator is ready. Drop a PM, I'm no UK time, I don't log on here every day.

Thanks for taking the time to make this guide. The next time I play SSDB I am going to read it again so I know when the more difficult rounds are coming and I'm ready.

Great point in particular about gremlins.

Great guide! Makes me want to give SSD another chance.

Thanks for ruining the community!

Very much appreciated!

I shall now go forth and conquer SSD Blitz! RAWR.

My pleasure. A solo performance will never match a good team though, so don't think this'll beat the leaderboards. It might push me down them though...