Editing Mnemon Explains Solar Combat (section)

===By Ability===

====Archery====

Ah...Solar Archery. Really, in my position, I should hate it, but I can't help but smile when I think of all those Tepet boys and girls lying under the Haltan redwoods, riddled with the arrows of the Bull of the North. I sent him a big box of thank-you chocolate (anonymously, of course).

Archery is the pre-eminent offence ability for the Solar Exalted. It is both the tool for punching holes in a single foe, and for killing extras en masse (I do so love the bit where you make armies evaporate. Just don't do it to mine, or I'll have Octavian eat your gizzard).

Firstly, get a Short Powerbow. Long Powerbows aren't worth the extra artifact dot, and mortal bows are totally inferior - they don't add any extra damage, and they cap your effective strength. Powerbows are fine for any strength (hello, Increasing Strength Exercise!), and have enormous range. However, their Rate is quite low - 2 - and hence this is one of the rare times you might consider a Jade version, for the extra point of rate. The accuracy and damage for orichalcum is excellent, however, so either choice is viable. Orichalcum Hearthstone bracers are also an excellent pick, allowing an easy 11L base damage before ammunition for a Str 3, Essence 3 character with Increasing Strength Exercise and an Orichalcum powerbow.

The reason why it's worth focusing on damage with archery is because in general, ranged attacks are assumed to do less damage, and tend to have charms balanced accordingly, so doing lots of damage tends to get a lot of effectiveness out of those charms. Arrow Storm Technique allows you to continue attacking so long as you don't miss or repeat a target, and hence is excellent for killing extras - automatic kills are extremely useful there. Furthermore, with Accuracy Without Distance, you have an attack that can be relied on to do at least base damage against anyone without a perfect defence - so making that base damage HURT can ruin someone's day, career, chance of inheriting the throne etc etc.

Choose your ammunition on a per-target basis, but expect to overwhelmingly use target arrows. Most of your enemies will rely on armour for their soak, so halving the benefit of their armour can drastically reduce their soak. For instance, if you did 11L base damage and hit an average Dragon Blood wearing Articulated Plate (normally a 13L soak assuming Sta 2-3), you would do 5 dice damage with a single success, since the armour's 12L soak would be cut to 6L.

Against targets with less than 6L but more than 1L armour soak, generally you'll want to use a broadhead, as it will give a slight advantage in damage over a target or frogcrotch arrow. Broadheads are also a safe bet if you're not sure of the soak situation - they don't mess with armour soak at all, and hence aren't actually a risk.

Frog Crotch arrows are best against armour soaks of 1L or less. They add +4 base damage, but double armour soak.

Nearly all the charms for Archery are excellent, though you may find There Is No Wind only particularly useful if you fight in poor conditions relatively often (or wish to lure foes into such poor conditions) and Immaculate Golden Bow only useful if carrying around your powerbow is problematic. Solar Spike does too little damage to be useful. Trance of Unhesitating Speed is worthlessly expensive, but required for Arrow Storm Technique (the Player's Guide corrects Trance of Unhesitating Speed to cost 3 motes per attack - try asking your GM to use this ruling).

Accuracy Without Distance is a perfect attack, and the most powerful offence charm available to Solars. Only perfect defences can prevent it from hitting, though some special defences can interfere with it (for instance, Dragon Blooded have a charm that burns all physical arrows that come near them - which can be defeated by Phantom Arrow - and a charm that redirects attacks to nearby targets). Generally, if you use this charm on a target, you can assume you'll do at least base damage, or force them to use a more expensive charm to defend. Use it on a foe who can't use a Perfect defence, and you're set.

Arrow Storm Technique is the best multiple action charm in the game, allowing shoot every single target within range so long as you hit each target. The key (apart from either having Inexhaustible Bolts of Solar Fire from the Dawn castebook, or be sitting on a wagon full of arrows) is the order in which you attack your foes. If your first shot is directed at an enemy Abyssal, she will certainly defend, and your charm will be over. However, if you start with the easiest targets and work up, you'll get many, many attacks - shooting first her zombies, then her war ghosts, then her nemissaries, then her horse, and then finally the Abyssal herself. She'll still defend, but she'll be down an army.

Dazzling Flare Attack is a great little damage adder, letting you add up to 2xEssence damage for Essence motes to an attack. It also throws in an extra attack die for good measure. Usually more useful than Firey Arrow Attack, but they work well together in combo.

Rain of Feathered Death is an excellent substitute for an Extra Action charm, as it's supplemental, allowing you to still take multiple actions, multiplying the damage on each one. Because each volley is defended against together, don't use this charm against opponents with excellent defence, as they'll be able to defend far more cheaply than the cost of this charm. Instead, use it to punish and swiftly kill enemies with poor defence.

Phantom Arrow Technique isn't particularly useful as a substitute for normal arrows (unless you're quite short, or don't have the right type for a particular target), but it's excellent for defeating defences that target normal arrows, such as Arrow Consuming Flame Defence for Dragon Blooded.

Sample Combo: Perfected Scourging Sunlight Accuracy Without Distance + Firey Arrow Attack + Rain of Feathered Death + Seven Shadow Evasion, 15XP. For (3+Essence) motes + 1wp per attack, perfectly does base damage + extra successes + 3xEssence damage, and may perfectly dodge any attack for 6 motes.


====Brawl====

Often considered the weakest Dawn ability, as it lacks a dice adder or any kind of defence, Brawl still has some significant advantages, and is capable of its own brand of mayhem. It's an excellent ability for those want to help out rather than be the frontline warrior (being the king of the "I hold him, you hit him" style of combat), or as a sneaky backup to Melee, Archery or Thrown. Archers will of course be kicking rather than punching.

Brawl is also recommended for social characters, since someone in a clinch has little choice about listening to you.

Firstly, get a weapon, whether it's a fighting gauntlet, a Smashfist, or whatever you find lying around. This lets you do lethal damage easily, and defend, whether by simply using Melee defence charms with the weapon (recommended), or by being able to parry lethal using Brawl without a stunt (if you insist).

Secondly, it's essential to have a good soak when using Brawl, as you simply can't defend any other way while clinching, and many of the better Brawl offence charms are Simple, meaning you won't be able to use actions to defend. Flow Like Blood is recommended.

Clinching is best done by picking an opponent whose defences aren't great, and then taking multiple clinch actions against them. You only need one to hit, and they're clinched - it doesn't matter whether it's a good hit or not, so unless you're dealing with persistent defences, wear them down in order to get a grip on them. Many enemies will be paranoid about being clinched, and may go to excessive measures to avoid it; so even if you're not successful, you can be a terrible drain on their resources. Just be careful - when in a clinch, you have no defences other than soak, and well, we've discussed relying on soak, haven't we? It's best to team up with a friend, and have them kill whoever you're clinching before THEIR friends can attack you. Voila, out of clinch and ready to defend.

Brawl's charms are split into two main trees - the general use tree, and the hurling people tree. A clinching character will want Dragon Coil Technique, and thus needs the first tree. A character meaning to rely on striking will want the second tree, as it allows unparryable attacks, while grabbing some useful charms from the first tree for comboing. Expect to make combos with Brawl, as its charms are highly synergistic.

Ferocious Jab is a must for all Brawlers, allowing extremely punishing hits against opponents with poor defences, and being extremely cheap besides! A must for a striking Brawl combo.

Fist of Iron Technique is useless, but required to progress through the tree. Move on.

Ox-Stunning Blow is an exceptionally good way to cut down an opponent relying on Soak to size. Pick a vulnerable target and hit them as hard as you can with this, and they'll be wearing huge penalties for several turns. Expect your friends to execute them during this time.

Thunderclap Rush automatically wins initiative against one opponent; it's best saved for combos designed to screw over opponents who REALLY don't like losing initiative - great for ambushing Martial Artists, fellow Celestials and others who rely on power-up time before a fight.

Hammer on Iron Technique is a bit expensive, and only worth doing when Flow Like Blood is up, as it cannot be combo'd with dodge charms.

Dragon Coil Technique is a great help in clinches - get the opponent in the clinch first, then activate it on subsequent turns.

Crashing Wave Throw is the key to the striking strategy - because it cannot be parried, target a foe with poor dodge or no perfect defences, preferably standing near a wall, and hammer them. A combo with Ferocious Jab and Heaven Thunder Hammer will maul most targets, especially if you can smash them *through* something.

Sample Combo: Gleeful Dawn Demolition Shot Crashing Wave Throw + Heaven Thunder Hammer + Ferocious Jab + Seven Shadow Evasion, 11xp. For 6 motes, make an unparryable attack, doubling successes for damage, and hurling foe Str + Successes + Total Raw Damage yards. Foe takes damage equal to yards of flight remaining if they hit an object.


====Martial Arts====
''the Odd Man Out''

"So" you say, looking at the charms available to you "What's up with Martial Arts?"

Well, MA is quite different. For a start, for mortals, there's no real difference between Martial Arts and Brawl, other than choice of weapons. They do exactly the same things. So why is there two abilities where one would do? Why are they separate charms?

The answer is - they're not really Solar charms at all. Martial Arts styles are shared amongst the Exalted. I could learn Snake Style if I felt like it. You could learn Air Dragon Style.

What does this mean? Well, for Dragon Blooded, it generally means Celestial Martial Arts charms are much better than our normal charms - that's why we get the Immaculates to fight you, since those crazy Sidereals cooked up a bunch of Celestial styles for them. For you, however, with your glorious combat charms, it generally means that Martial Arts charms just aren't as good as your normal charms.

If you wanted me to tell you how to use Martial Arts to be just as good as the Dawn with Melee and the Night with Archery, well, sorry Swan, but I'm not going to. An investment in Martial Arts just isn't as worthwhile as one in one of the other Dawn abilities. I without hesitation recommend against it for beginning players.

Still, it has its uses. For a start, Martial Arts often provides a lot of eclectic benefits that can be used well with other combat modes. For instance, Snake Style subtracts dice equal to your essence from opponents' attacks against you. There's no reason why you couldn't be using that while fighting with Melee, for instance (use one of Snake's form weapons, as clarified by the Player's Guide to be seven section staves and hook swords, and you can switch abilities seamlessly). Martial Arts also has by far the most charms for any one ability, and thus some insanely wicked combos can be constructed across styles (if you buy enough supplements to have a nice library of styles). Finally, if your GM is hostile or eccentric about custom charms, Martial Arts might be the only way to get a certain effect, since there's a published Martial Arts charm for just about everything. Indeed, without custom charms, then the most powerful charms available are the Sidereal Martial Arts.

In general, the best advice for Solars using Martial Arts is to not forget to build a bedrock of might with normal Solar charms, and then pick Martial Arts charms that exploit it. Armour Penetrating Fang Strike + Essence Venom Strike is nasty, sure, but any Sidereal can do that. Add Leaping Tiger Attack to the mix and you have something special.

The main problem with Martial Arts, however, is you need supplements. Snake Style badly needs the fixes from the Player's Guide. Then you need more books to get more styles (Violet Bier of Sorrows from the Sidereal book is particularly wicked in Solar hands). As you start, learn combat with another ability, and then you should be able to select a Martial Arts strategy that will work for you later when you understand the implications, and are resigned to paying for a few useless pre-form charms for every style you pick up.


====Melee====

Solar Melee. Well.

More Wyld Hunts than even I care to admit have ended badly when the newly-exalted child picks up, oh, I dunno, a shovel, declares "I am the Invincible Spear Princess", and proceeds to kill everyone. It's terribly humiliating when your own nephew is decapitated by a prancing thirteen year old with a garden implement.

Solar Archery is the supreme offensive ability, but overall, Melee is peerless. You have no idea how jealous the Cathak are of your charms. I've already covered the sheer excellence of the thing at defence, so let's talk a bit about using it to kill people.

For a start, Melee is where the biggest base damages are. Reaver Daikave. Grand Daiklave. Yet if you want, you have weapons of greater finesse at your disposal, such as the Direlance, or, well, virtually anything other than a bow or a chakram. Even if a weapon is nominally for another ability, you can almost always use it with Melee. The flexibility of choice is enormous.

That being said, I recommend the Reaver Daiklave, for its value on the accuracy and damage front, and because it leaves an off-hand free for Brawl or Thrown. You're Solars, you don't need the extra Speed or Defence, really. Cleave our mutual foes up and feed them to the Panic Monkeys.

Your strategy is really quite simple. Have stacked reflexive defences, dodge and parry, and then attack as many times as you have dice for. When your opponent is vulnerable, assault them with an offence charm or combo and destroy them.

Let's look at the charms.

The Excellent Strike tree is the core offence tree. Excellent Strike itself is a very basic dice-adder. It's too expensive and inefficient for sustained use, but it's a key part of combos.

Hungry Tiger Technique is an excellent charm, exactly like Ferocious Jab for Brawl. It doubles your successes for the purpose of damage, and hence can wickedly punish those with poor defences, and will never add less than 1 damage. If you're doing nothing else with the essence, put Hungry Tiger on each attack and stunt the motes back.

Fire & Stones Strike is an exceptionally good charm, especially for anyone relying on doing minimum damage. Because it converts damage dice to automatic successes, spending one mote on each attack guarantees a health level damage with any successful attack, allowing virtually any foe to be swiftly whittled down.

Of the multi-attack charms, only Iron Whirlwind is really any good. One Weapon Two Blows is too easily defended against, while Peony Blossom is too expensive. Only buy this tree if using the Player's Guide fixes (Peony Blossom 3m/attack, OWTB reduced to 2 motes).

The Retrieve the Fallen Weapon tree has some great charms buried behind some fairly useless ones. Retrieve the Fallen Weapon and Call the Blade simply aren't worthwhile - disarms are extremely difficult in Exalted, and if you don't have your weapon in reach, grab an improvised weapon, and defend with that while running over to pick up your primary weapon. Summon the Loyal Steel is very useful, however. Glorious Solar Saber is only really useful when facing an enemy who can break weapons (like an Earth Immaculate). Iron Raptor Technique and Sandstorm Wind Attack are not particularly useful - better to use Cascade of Cutting Terror with a javelin in the off hand. However, Blazing Solar Bolt and Corona of Radiance are excellent for fighting against the dead.

For offence, the Golden Essence Block tree offers access to counterattacks, with both Solar Counterattack and Ready in Eight Directions Stance. Solar Counterattack is great either in combo, or against enemies you're fairly certain you don't need to use a charm to defend against - it's an easy way to drain an enemy's defensive resources, especially if their attack makes them vulnerable. Ready in Eight Directions Stance's key weakness is its duration - it can't be put in combo - but it's a bargain at five motes, and can greatly discourage attacks against you. It's perfect for when you're ambushed - Full Dodge and Fivefold Bulwark the first turn, then Full Dodge and RI8DS each turn after that.

Counterattacks are almost always better than extra action charms, because they are similarly priced or cheaper, and as Reflexive charms, let you do whatever you like with your dice action. Iron Whirlwind won't give you more than about 5 attacks, but Ready In Eight Directions Stance lets you attack as many times as you like with your dice action, and then counterattack every single attack - you could easily get 10 attacks or more from such a strategy. Neither charm needs to be declared until you are actually attacked, so you'll never waste Solar Counterattack, and will always get at least one counter from Ready In Eight Directions. Using Ready In Eight Directions to dramatically counter and kill a lesser foe may also discourage later attackers, which could be extremely useful if you're relying on Full Dodge or Shadow Over Water rather than Flow Like Blood.

The downside to counterattacks is that your enemy chooses when you can use them. You may want to invest in Presence and taunt the enemy.

Sample Combo: Crushingly Overpowered Smite Excellent Strike + Hungry Tiger Technique + Fire & Stones Strike + Thunderbolt Attack Prana + Heavenly Guardian Defence, 13xp. Assuming Strength 3, for 19 motes + 1wp attack with +10 dice, successes doubled for damage, 3 damage dice auto succeed, total HL damage doubled.


====Thrown====

Much like archery, the key to this one is getting a high base damage. Increasing Strength Exercise and orichalcum Hearthstone Bracers highly recommended. Javelins are cheap, disposable, and provide some accuracy and 3L damage - try grabbing Flawless Handiwork Method from Craft in order to knock out piles of exceptional javelins easily.

When talking the charms, there is one that must be picked out over all. Cascade of Cutting Terror is an absolutely superlative charm. It has only one prerequisite, doubles your total Thrown pool (easily allowing 30 dice attacks), is undodgeable and supplemental. This is sheer murder against anyone lacking a perfect defence. It will fairly consistently butcher Fire Immaculates and anyone else relying on dodging, and will penetrate just about any parry pool. It's almost unfair. The doubled pool doesn't even count as being added dice, meaning you can still combo it with Precision of the Striking Raptor. This is the charm you'll use the most - just make sure your opponent can't pull out a perfect parry, and go to town.

Joint Wounding Attack isn't as reliable as Ox-Stunning Blow, but it's very useful, as its penalty is inflicted in addition to damage, making it perfect to combo with Cascade of Cutting Terror.

Falling Icicle Strike is overpriced, and only useful once a combat; however, it could be decisive, as it is MURDEROUS when in combo with Cascade of Cutting Terror.

Most of the other charms do have tactical uses for lone assassins or in combination with clever stunts, but in general, none of them pose a convincing argument for their use compared to Cascade of Cutting Terror. Bolster your base damage as much as you can and exploit that charm.

Sample Combo: Agonising Javelin-Barred Prison Cascade of Cutting Terror + Joint Wounding Attack + Seven Shadow Evasion, 11XP. For 8 Motes per attack, double thrown pool, undodgeable, adding -1 cumulative penalty per HL inflicted.


====Combined Strategies====

=====Melee/Thrown=====

With a one-handed weapon in your good hand, and a javelin in your off hand, you can maintain Melee's trademark iron-clad defence while retaining access to all the power of Cascade of Cutting Terror. Try attacking foes before their initiative with say one or two Melee attacks - this will force most non-Celestial foes to abort to a defence. At this point, unleash Cascade of Cutting Terror on them, as they will be unable to defend against it, since aborting to dodge does them no good against the undodgeable attack, and aborting to parry would have supplied them only one parry, which would have defended against the Melee attack. This strategy also works wonders against those using hopping defences (such as the Dragon Blooded's Hopping Firecracker Technique), defences that allow the user to leap away after a successful dodge, since they will discover to their extreme discomfort that they are WELL within the range of Cascade of Cutting Terror.

=====Melee/Thrown/Brawl=====

This stack of abilities is obviously somewhat more expensive to invest in, but leaves you perfectly comfortable in a clinch, and able, after using Melee attacks to probe the enemy's defences, choose either Crashing Wave Throw or Cascade of Cutting Terror to attack with, depending on the favoured defence mode of the enemy.

=====Archery/Brawl=====

Archery weapons require two hands, and thus preclude Melee. However, they don't particularly restrict the use of your feet. Since powerbows have a low Rate, try shooting close by enemies twice, and then kicking them another two times - or vice versa. Use one mode to strip defences away from a non-Celestial target, and then deliver powerful charm-enhanced blows (I recommend targeting the nether regions. Most of your foes don't deserve to breed, particularly the erstwhile spawn of my siblings).

=====Archery/Martial Arts=====

Similarly to Archery/Brawl, but with the added benefit of being able to assume and gain the benefits of defensive Form charms like Snake or Ebon Shadow, this is actually an excellent use of Martial Arts, particularly useful to archers who by hanging up the back can go a little lighter on soak. However, if you suspect your game may at any point use the Player's Guide rules (Power Combat/Form Weapons), avoid this strategy, since it's likely you'll be unable to use your chosen Form with a bow.


====A Quick Note on Dice Adders and Extra Action Charms====


Many people consider raw number of dice to be a decisive advantage in combat. It most certainly is not. While having large pools is extremely useful, having excellent charm technology that makes good use of those pools is more important - for example the size of a Solar's parry and dodge pools is less important than his ability to use both reflexively against all attacks.

Furthermore, the Solar dice advantage is not great. Lunars can add less dice, but usually have bloated pools owing to their warforms that are much larger even without dice adders. Sidereals can add extremely few dice, but can alter the probability of gaining a success. Dragon Blooded can add only a few less dice than Solars, and often more cheaply.

Do not be fooled into thinking Excellent Strike, Wise Arrow and Precision of the Striking Raptor are decisive advantages; they are not. They are inefficient, and unless your base damage is considerable, may not result in much damage at all. They are useful to brute-force past large defences, and in combo with charms that amplify their effects (such as Hungry Tiger Technique). Otherwise, however, it is usually better to attack a more vulnerable target with another offence charm that will have greater effect, such as Fire and Stones Strike or Cascade of Cutting Terror.

Similarly, Extra Action charms provide more dice than simply taking multiple action penalties to act multiple times, but consider whether those dice are necessary, for they come at two prices. The first is their mote and willpower cost, which might be better spent elsewhere. The other is their locking you into a specific type of action - almost always multiple attacks in the same ability - preventing you from mixing combat styles in the turn, or mixing in non-combat actions. Once again, a high base damage is more likely to make this worthwhile.


====How much essence and willpower should I spend?====

This is more than a little contextual. Minor skirmish with scouts just ahead of the Wyld Hunt? Go cheap. Desperate final battle with your Deathlord nemesis? Spend at every good opportunity.

In general, it's silly to die with motes left unspent, but being out of motes is a common cause of death.

If you have a Hearthstone, you can safely spend more, assuming you'll have any time at all between battles (and if you don't have time, why, it's going to be the same Scene, so rely on your persistent charms!). Likewise if the time between battles will be peaceful enough to rest, or include social scenes where you can safely stunt back essence.

If you're trying to remain roughly mote-neutral, you should be able to spend 4 motes a turn, and stunt it back with two +2 stunts. If you're under an unfriendly stunting regieme, or if you feel bland or uninspired, cut that back somewhat.

Let's look at Invincible Sword Princess, early in her career. She has Essence 3, Willpower 6, and virtues totalling 9. She has a Reaver Daiklave and an orichalcum reinforced buff jacket, for a total commitment of 8 motes. She has 15 personal essence, and 36 peripheral, cut to 28 after commitment, for a total of 43 motes.

If she's in a battle where she needs to conceal her Solar nature, she'll only have Personal essence at her disposal. After activating Flow Like Blood and Fivefold Bulwark Stance, she's committed 10 of those 15 motes, and is down 2wp. She has a total budget of 5 motes, but feels confident that she won't need to use Heavenly Guardian Defence, so she can spend and regain that fairly freely. In the first two turns of combat, she spends 3 motes using Fire & Stones Strike for 1 mote on each of three attacks, and does two +2 stunts, gaining 1 wp and 2 motes between them. She keeps this pattern up for two more turns, but takes essence from her stunts at 4 motes per turn, showing a slight profit. Finally, with 5 motes back in the bank, she makes 4 Fire & Stones attacks each turn, and stays roughly mote-neutral with stunts. After the battle, she just needs to regain the ten committed motes with some light rest and her Hearthstone.

In open pitched battle against the Wyld Hunt, she has no such concerns. In addition to Fivefold Bulwark and Flow Like Blood, she commits nine motes to Increasing Strength Exercise for a total of nineteen motes, leaving her with 24 motes. She decides she needs to reserve twelve motes spare for emergency Heavenly Guardian Defence, but is happy to fluctuate between 12-24 motes through stunting and offence charms. After holding her action in the first turn in order to act last, she knows she won't need a charm for defence in the first turn. She attacks a Dynast who foolishly used a Simple charm in front of her, spending 3 motes on Fire & Stones Strike on each of four attacks, easily killing him. She takes 2 wp for her two +2 stunts for the turn. The next two turns she uses no essence, and regains 8 motes instead. Happy with that, she spends motes when the opportunity comes from then on, usually no more than 6 or less than 2, gaining four essence from stunts per turn. When the Hunt is substantially broken, an Air Immaculate seeks to flee, and goes within sprinting distance of Invincible Sword Princess. Seeing an opportunity, and feeling fairly safe, she dips into her 12 mote reserve, and fires off a Leaping Tiger Attack + Hungry Tiger Technique + Fire & Stones Strike combo.

For a situation between a quiet "No-one here but us mortals, officer" brawl and a pitched battle, try letting your essence gradually degrade. Spend, say, 6 motes every turn, regaining four motes with stunts. You'll have a good reserve for defences or opportunities for combos, but will still be getting good use out of your offence charms. If you like to use a combo every turn, you'll probably need to make sure you regain 1wp per turn, and will likely be using much more essence, so expect this to be a sharper decline, suitable for faster battles.

In general, spend when you feel safe. Try not to spend too much willpower, and if you do, stunt it back as a priority - essence is much easier to regain between battles. Spend some essence up front to free up space for stunt essence, but otherwise look for good opportunities rather than brute-forcing the situation with big essence spends.