Operation guide: SK-5

Operation

Guide

SK-5 is a notoriously annoying stage due to RNG with a popular strategy known as the "Shaw Strategy". However there is a way to circumvent the RNG and that is what will be shown here.

As soon as the stage begins, immediately deploy Shaw with skill 1 facing up on the ranged tile closest to the red box on the right side. Shaw will be able to deal with the early enemies. As soon as you have enough DP, deploy a Defender, preferably Cuora one tile up and one tile right of Shaw. The enemies coming will get blocked by the defender and pushed down by Shaw. It is highly recommended to have Shaw at skill level 7 as the lower SP cost means Shaw can push enemies quicker.

There are multiple ways to deal with the left side, one of which involves using no melee operators. One strategy involves deploying two ST-Casters and one slow Supporter on the 3 connected ranged tiles once the defender has been deployed. Then, once the Heavy Defender Leaders arrive, deploy an AoE caster on the ranged tile below the left side red box to help with DPS.

After the Heavy Defender Leaders are dead, retreat the AoE caster and deploy a Sniper in its place facing up. When an Arts Guard gets in range of the sniper, use a bait unit with 1 block, such as Gravel or a Duelist Guard on top of the arts guard. This will make the sniper target the arts guard rather than the Armed Militants.

Meanwhile, deploy a medic on the right side to heal the defender.

Once the arts guards die, retreat the sniper and redeploy the AoE caster to help kill the last of the Armed Militants.

Another strategy is to use a defender on the bottom with a medic to heal. Though this strategy requires much higher DPS from the casters/supporters as the arts guards and armed militants deal a lot of damage and they need to be dealt with quickly.

Important Note: At around 41 enemies, an arts guard has a chance of leaking on the right side. The easiest way to circumvent this is to use Cuora's skill 2 if she is being used. If Cuora is not being used, retreat the sniper and keep rotating melee units to damage the leaked arts guard until it dies.

Another important thing to keep note of is that at the end, the last Heavy Defender Leader on the right side may not fall down from Shaw's pushes. To counter this, deploy a melee unit on top of the Heavy Defender and Shaw will eventually push it down.