How to Earn a Triple Win Condition!
by Cephalon9999 and grackle
Note: This article was written with Generation 1-8 agents in mind. As more Gen 9+ agents enter the game (with Active/Elemental Boost skills) some of the specific advice here might change, but the fundamentals should remain the same. Credit to Wheeto and Protonprime for their original guide to skills and elements, the foundation on which much of this advice is built.
Getting a single win condition in a game of Chaos Agents might be straight-forward, but getting multiple win conditions, and especially the elusive triple win con, can sometimes be a challenge. Let’s go over the fundamentals of achieving each win con and then figure out how to combine them into the Voltron of Win Cons!
Act I: Single Win Conditions
First, let’s consider each individual win condition. Here are the three most important skillsets to look for in an agent, three plans to make going into a match, and three tips to keep in mind once your agent is on the surface of Altareth.
Shardmaster
Best Skillsets:
1) Time
2) Dark
3) Space
Your goal in selecting a sharder is to find an agent who can move between, and collect, shards quickly. Five of the seven skills in Time grant the agent a shard collection cooldown bonus, and don’t forget that every other element deployment in Time is free thanks to the impulse it grants the agent. Dark is the only other category with a shard collection cooldown bonus, so be sure to look for Shadow of the Bat, and the evasion that Dark grants also helps to keep a sharder in the game longer. And of course, Space levels up the speed of your agent, letting them get from shard to shard quicker. Other skills that are helpful are Life (to regenerate while still collecting), Shield (to take less damage while collecting), and Brain (for faster leveling up of the other skillsets, and for the increased vision that Freshman and Sophomore provide).
Planning:
1) If possible, have your agent deploy near the edge of the map, but right next to a shard and/or a group of shards.
2) Set your strategy to Prioritize Collecting to begin the game in Collect mode.
3) Set your slider to retreat between 90-98% of your agent’s max health.
Alone time is a sharder’s best friend. There is no feeling better than being by yourself on one side of the map to collect shards while everyone else fights it out on the other side. Therefore, you want to try to spawn away from the fray, but near enough to at least a few shards to get off to a good start. Remember, that if you and an opponent are both on 10 shards, and you get to 11 first, your opponent then has to collect 2 shards (to get to 12) to take back the title of Shardmaster away from you. Keep that in mind at the beginning of the game and try to be the first to get a shard. After the first shard though, your agent will likely need 8-10 seconds of cooldown time before they can collect another, so it isn’t critical that the second shard is close as long as it is within your field of vision. Retreating quickly, usually after taking only 1-2 hits, is just a fact of being a sharder. Your agent might not be built to brawl, so if they happen to run into a warzone, get them out of there as soon as possible, hopefully to an unoccupied corner of the map where they can go back to collecting.
Tips:
1) Sometimes it makes sense to go into full retreat for a turn to get away from a wolf-pack of other sharders, or a brawler in pursuit.
2) In the late game, when most of the shards have been collected, set your retreat about 3-5% below your current health level to be sure your agent collects at least one shard for that round.
3) When it is down to just two agents, if you are ahead on shards it sometimes makes sense to go into full attack mode.
Always remember, personal space is a sharder’s best friend. If possible, get away from other agents and then resume collecting in peace. If you are in a tight race for shardmaster and your agent is in the lead, the most important thing is to keep that lead every round. Setting your slider to guarantee that at the beginning of the round your agent is sprinting for the nearest shard is the best way to do that. If you are behind on shards you will have to take more risks to try to catch up. If you find yourself as one of the last two agents alive, and with the Shardmaster title, sometimes it makes sense to go full attack. Too often, a brawler with high health, against a sharder with low health, will go into collect mode and try to take the Shardmaster title from you. You can force the issue by going full attack. Either you will KO that agent, earning you a double win con, or force them to knock you out before they can take the Shardmaster title from you.
Brawlmaster
Best Skillsets:
1) Chaos
2) Force
3) Honor
Clearly, to win brawlmaster you need an agent ready to fight. Every Chaos skill upgrades crit chance or damage output, so you can never go wrong with this skillset. Force upgrades ranged damage, which is especially helpful when you are in pursuit of a retreating agent. Look for Fragmenting Ammo (formerly School of Cuts) for yet another boost to crit chance, as well as a boost to the crit multiplier. Also, Brute (formerly Incinerate) as the top-end skill is essential for massive damage output in the late game. Honor’s upgrades to melee damage are the best when your agent is up against another brawler, just try to avoid Beef as it does not provide any damage boost and isn’t worth its cost. Skills in other skillsets to look out for include Junior in Brain (+7 crit chance), Shadow of the Dark Moon in Dark (+7 crit chance), and Lightspeed in Time (-25% cooldown on all attacks). Obviously, other helpful skillsets include Shield when up against other brawlers, Space when in pursuit, and Life for recovering after a fight, but you can’t fit them all into one agent so you will have to decide which works best with your playstyle.
Planning:
1) When choosing a spawn point, if your agent has Space then you can spawn in the middle of the map, if not, spawn in a corner.
2) Set your strategy to Prioritize Attacking to begin the game in Attack mode.
3) If your agent has Space, set your slider to retreat somewhere below 80% of your max health, otherwise click Always Survive to begin the match.
If you want to be Brawlmaster you are going to have to get your hands dirty, but you shouldn’t jump right into the thick of it unless your agent has the right skills. An agent without Space will probably remain at 20 speed the whole game (the only non-Space upgrade to speed is Dimension Shift in Time which is not a high priority skillset for a brawler), which means that faster agents will be able to dictate when battles occur, running away if they don’t want to fight. Therefore, a brawler without Space (and believe us, this is a solid strategy) should probably hide in a corner of the map for 5-10 rounds before engaging, because once they start their slow pursuit of enemy agents they will never be able to run away again. Better to let the other agents beat each other up a bit and level up your skills before committing to the action. However, a brawler with Space can mix it up early, then run away to heal if they are taking too much damage.
Tips:
1) You don’t have to be in attack mode all the time to win Brawlmaster.
2) Be aware of the stats of enemy agents in your area for the start of the next round.
3) Brawlmaster is more likely to have a tie for the top spot than any other win con, don’t forget that the tie breaker is total damage dealt.
Use your retreat slider strategically. If your agent is going into attack mode next round, decide how much of its health you are willing to spend in pursuit of a KO. No need to go all-in too soon if you don’t have to. Also, after a tough fight it might make sense to take a round or two off to retreat, heal, and let the other agents beat up on each other. Be sure to check the stats of nearby agents when deciding if you will be in retreat or attack mode each round. Sometimes you will have to take a fight against an agent with higher attack or health, however, it’s better to avoid them if you can improve your agent’s stats with key upgrades in the next round or two, and you have the speed to get away in the current round. But, be on the lookout for weak or retreating agents in your area. Timely and opportunistic KO’s, like sniping an agent with very low health that another agent did most of the work on, will help you climb the leaderboard. Remember, there are only 7 KO’s available in any given match and it isn’t unusual to have a tie at 2-3 KO’s between multiple agents. If that’s the case then total damage dealt is the tiebreaker. If you’ve been mixing it up from the beginning of the match then the tiebreaker is probably on your side, but if not that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Sometimes when it is down to just your agent and another agent in retreat, going into retreat mode yourself and letting the other agent heal will mean that you can knock them out slowly and deal more damage in the process, perhaps squeezing out a victory on tiebreakers.
Survivalist
Best Skillsets:
1) Life
2) Shield
3) Space
Winning Survivalist on its own is tricky. It is a passive win con. You don’t have to accomplish anything to get it, you just have to not die. Usually, before all 30 rounds are up, there will be only one agent left standing, which will by default be declared Survivalist. But if there are multiple agents still alive at the end of the final round, then the one that has taken the most damage wins the Survivalist title. So, what helps an agent not die? Gaining life, not taking damage, and being able to run away from attackers. So the best skillsets are pretty obvious. Dark is also a great addition, as evasion is another way to avoid taking damage. Brain and Time are also great pick ups as they will allow for faster upgrades and more actions per round, which means more temporary boosts such as the +12 health that deploying Life elements will give your agent.
Planning:
1) Spawn on the edge of the map, preferably the left or right edge, or in a corner.
2) Set your agent to Always Survive.
3) Maybe bring a book or have a movie playing on your other monitor.
Again, your primary purpose here is to not die. That’s it. So don’t get involved in anything else. Don’t fight anyone. Don’t collect shards. Always retreat. Now, this really is not the best strategy, which is also true of trying to win Survivalist by itself, but let’s consider it for the sake of the argument before mixing in a few other tips in the next section. Remember, there is no active goal here, nothing to accomplish, so it might be a bit boring. The biggest challenge will be having the discipline not to get involved.
Tips
1) Temporary boosts might be more important than efficient deployment of elements.
2) Hold on to Life upgrades if you don’t need them immediately.
3) Frequently the best route to Survivalist is to get the last KO, rather than trying to survive all 30 rounds.
If you are being chased by an attacker, sometimes it might make more sense to click Space as much as possible just to get away and leave that attacker chasing a slower agent, rather than efficiently deploying multiple elements in another skillset as would otherwise be your natural instinct. The same is true for Life if you just took a fair amount of damage, or Dark and Shield if you aren’t able to get away from a pursuer. Also, with regards to Life, if you are at full life and in no immediate danger, don’t automatically upgrade that skill just because you’ve deployed enough elements to earn it. Save it for a rainy day. There might come a time when, after having been left in peace for a while, you find your agent taking a couple crits while stuck in a corner. If you have the +30 health and +45 health from Breath III and Breath IV to deploy right afterwards then you will be able to heal quicker than you could by any other means. Finally, don’t forget that to earn the title of Survivalist, your agent doesn’t have to survive all 30 rounds, instead they could be the last agent standing. So, if you have skillsets that upgrade attacks, be diligent in leveling them up while no one is attacking your agent. Then, ideally, when it is down to just two agents left, the other agent will be low on health and you can pounce and knock them out with your full-life agent to earn this win con.
Act 2: Double Win Conditions
Most games of Chaos Agents will see one agent getting two win conditions. Usually Survivalist is paired up with Shardmaster or Brawlmaster, so let’s discuss the strategies for each of those combinations.
Shardmaster + Survivalist
This combination usually plays out with an agent working towards the Shardmaster title, then knocking out the last enemy when the field has been whittled down to two agents. If your agent has a large lead on shards with only 3-4 agents left, it makes sense to go into retreat and heal back to full health while the other agents brawl, then swoop in to KO the last enemy agent to get the double win con. To that end, in addition to the typical skillsets that are good for a sharder, your agent will also want 1-2 attacking skillsets (Chaos, Force, Honor) and maybe a defense skillset like Shield as well. However, sometimes fate won’t work out as planned and though you might have the Shardmaster title locked up, when it is down to only one other agent you might be up against a Brawlmaster at full health. In that scenario, it is unlikely that your agent could win in a straight fight so you might have no other option other than going into full retreat to try to take home Survivalist.
Brawlmaster + Survivalist
Much like the combination above, this usually plays out with an agent striving for the Brawlmaster title and also being the last agent standing. Sometimes getting that last KO and winning Survivalist will be the key to winning Brawlmaster and breaking a tie with another agent. In addition to the best Brawlmaster skillsets, try to find an agent with Life and a defensive skillset like Shield or Dark. That way, your agent will be more likely to go into the final fight at high health and not get knocked out by an opportunistic Shardmaster. However, when it is down to just two agents, if your agent has less health that doesn’t necessarily make them the underdog. A high crit chance and high attack against a classic sharder can easily make for a come-from-behind victory. Often, your brawler will end up having to chase a faster agent down for that final KO. In that case, prioritize Chaos and Force deploys for the temporary boosts to crit chance and ranged damage, as chasing a faster agent usually means only one chance for a melee attack each round when the enemy agent gets stuck in a corner for a few seconds.
Act 3: Triple Win Conditions
Getting the coveted triple win condition victory requires both skill and luck.
If getting all three win cons is your goal from the outset you will likely be selecting an all-rounder style of agent, which means sacrificing a skillset or two from the ideal composition for each style of agent focused on a single win condition. You will probably start in Collect mode and look for opportunistic knock-outs, and hope that the chips fall your way. Frequently, you will win Brawlmaster with only 2 knockouts and Shardmaster with only 1-2 shards more than the next agent. You may be chasing down an agent for the last KO that is trying to take the Shardmaster title from you, or in a final fight with another agent also hoping for Brawlmaster. Winning on tiebreakers is frequently critical with this method.
The more common way to achieve all three win cons is by playing a more classic brawler or sharder, and then seizing key opportunities (and getting lucky) to put up stats in that third column. As a sharder this usually means sniping a few KO’s when agents with critically low health are retreating in your direction. With brawlers this usually means spawning on an edge of the map and being lucky enough to see all of your competition spawn on the other side so that you are free to collect shards for a number of rounds while leveling up your attacking skills. In both cases you might have to act out of character at the end of the game to get all three win cons. That means putting a sharder into full attack mode even if your attack upgrades are weak, or sending a brawler into full collect mode to get that last 2-3 shards you need to take the lead in that category while you are being chased by another agent.
Note that the only skill not noted above as best for one of the playstyles is Brain. That does not mean Brain isn’t valuable, in fact it is one of the most valuable skillsets to have. It can provide attack upgrades (range or crit chance) or better vision (to see shards before your opponents), but its primary function is to help your other skills level up faster by drawing more elements. In particular, look for Muse and Freshman to be one of the first skills, as those provide a critical boost in the early game to maxing out your agent’s skills. Not every game will make it past round 20, sometimes you can take all three win conditions by having the agent with the most upgrades by round 15.
Hopefully this information sets you on the right path to being the next world champion. Please join the Chaos Agents Discord and let us know your feedback on the advice above, especially as Elemental Boost skills in Gen 9+ and other coming innovations to the game change the strategy. Good luck and happy collecting/hunting!