I've solo'ed hard with all five heroes and impossible with all but Morrow. By solo I mean not only survive until the end, but also complete all storm spirit quests.

I'll try to describe what you need to do for each stage of the game, what are some key items, and how do you know if you've fallen behind schedule, etc. I assume you know what you need to do in this game, what quests are there, and how to get items, etc.

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1. Start to first stop attack
The first objective of the game is to accumulate 4000 gold and stop the attack. You should do this by farming fishies for 'east sea pearls'. Do not pick them up. If you let them be auto sold you get 900 gold instead of 300. Farm to get enough for 4000 gold, pause the game, and wait for them to be auto sold, unpause, buy stop attack.

Ideally you should stop attack before wave 2. This way, in impossible you get to stop attack before wave 33 (enchantress) and 38 (od), where the wave elites hit really hard, and have extra time to prepare. In hard if you stop before wave 3 and stop in every possible occasion, you get to stop attack just before the final boss. You should have completed main quest before this, but in case you get unlucky with keys this really helps.

If you are going for a speed run there are some strategic elements in when to stop, but that is beyond the scope of this guide.

So, now you've stopped attack, and mean while you should have completed the main quest up until the 600 virtue requirement.

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2. first stop attack
The first goal of this phase is to get 600 virtue and get the first state. You have a quest to kill the fish demon king for 200 virtue. Do this first so when you finish 600 virtue he respawns again. Next do the 15 spiders quest from the spider cave for another 100. Now you are probably ~100 short. Just farm fishies/treants/wolves in that priority and you can get it in no time. Do not be tempted to skip ahead to rikis for the 200 virtue there. It is more efficient to spend the time to farm more gold from fishies, and spend that gold in upgrading your weapon to +7. Don't wait, just upgrade your starting weapon. The difference between that and +4/+5 ones does not justify the extra time it will take you to kill bosses.

After you get the first state, now it is the time to go for rikis. Do the main quest and the side quests at the same time. You should have time to complete or nearly completing killing the mountain demon boss (lycan).

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3. before second stop attack, first round of warlock quests
Now the wave has come again. You should have enough money from fishies to upgrade base at least once. That way if you kill the wave elites the normal wave creep can't damage basa. If you upgrade twice you can totally ignore wave 2, and upgrade 3 times in impossible you can ignore wave 3 and 4.

Now you should be level 30. If not get to 30 by doing the 15 spiders segment of the main quest. As soon as you hit 30, make warlock quests the priority and main quest second priority. THe ideal situation is a combination of wolf king and fish king with a spider king that you can do along the main quest. If you do get Snow king, evaluate your gear. If you have a random C or B set ready and +7 weapon you should just go ahead. If you don't have a random set and don't think you can easily farm up one, just buy the 1800 x 3 A set from the shop.

Don't forget to keep farming fishies and do the spider king quest once or twice more in the mean time. One key item to get is the accesory echant from spider king, that applies a poison on attack. This is a very important item.

Before you can buy the second stop attack you should be done with the first round of 5 warlock quests, done the main quest up to either the Snow king or the phoenix if you are luckier with the warlock quests.

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4. 2nd stop attack, unlocking 3rd skill and start trial demons
At this time you want to have +10 initial weapon, +7 boots(Which ever boots that is part of your set, doesn't really matter. the +7 matters much more).

What you do at this time is pretty straight forward. You kill Snow king if you haven't yet, then proceed to kill phoniex/white tiger/green dragon/black turtle. This should unlock your 3rd skill and bring main quest up to the 3500 virtue requirement.

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5. after unlocking 3rd skill, before 3rd stop attack
You should still have some time before stop attack ends. If you bought stop attack right as cd ended, on hard the next wave should come at ~400s cd and impossible ~300s cd (both gets reset to 400s).

If you got 40~60 seconds left you can go kill east sea dragon king now for the 800 virtue follow up quest after the fishy king quest, and if you have less time, kill the dragon king after the boss wave where you have more time.

At this phase, your goal is to get to 3500 virtue as soon as possible. Do the first mirana quest for 200 virtue, kill snow king again and see if you are lucky to get the necklace for the 200 virtue quest, or do more spider king quest for 70 virtue a piece. Your goal is to get to 3500 virtue as soon as possible.

Also, if the second round of warlock quests is favorable (phoenix/tiger/dragon/turtle/snow king) you should do them for the easy virtue boost, if you get bosses from demons moutain, you should consider if you can beat them efficiently. You can if you are foxy/phoebe, but usually not with the others.

Also, you should now go start the trial demon quests, and kill trial demons any time they've respawned and you are between two tasks above. Also kill fishies between tasks for more gold too.

As soon as you get 3500 virtue and get the next state, you should proceed to the next step.

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6. Demon/God wings quest
In hard you usually start this as at the 3rd stop attack. On impossible you can usually started this before that. Foxy/Phoebe/Cloud should definitely go demon wings because demon wings means more damage, and Foxy/Phoebe don't need to tank. Cloud only fights with 3rd/4th skill up anyway so no need to tank. For Morrow more defense is better as having the change to do a few extra attacks that might triggers more passives is more damage than having more damage each attack. Rondu can go either way as his 2nd skill already provides a reliable 2 seconds attack window every 10 seconds.

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7. From wings to 4th state
After you get wings you enter into a phase of relative peace. Finish the second round of warlock quest and do enough of 3rd round to get to 7000 virtue. Meanwhile you should have completed the trial demon quest. Keep up with the fishies. Also, unless you are Cloud, trade for the 250 points weapon in the points shop, and upgrade it to +10. If you are lucky enough to have assembled a random S set at this point, good for you, if not just upgrade your exsting gear to +10 if you got non-overlapping two sets in 2+3 or 2+2, or you can use the trial demon set with +10 boots. You should be able to get past this phase as the 4th stop attack comes up.

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8. After 4th state and before budha/12 zu wu
Big Budha and the 12 zu wu is the first real obstacle in this map. You need enough armour to tank a few hits from budha, and enough damage to kill the 12 zu wu in good time. Expect to spend some time in this phase. This is the phase with the most freedom. You can do alot of things depending on your strategy.

The number one priority at this phase is gear. Look at the S pieces you have, and try to farm the bosses to complete the set. You can use what you farm in this phase all the way to the end, except Morrow. The ideal situation is to get 2 sets that has 2 pieces each, and leave an accesory slot for the trinket I'm talking about next. Don't sell any of the 2 piece S sets as they might compliment a Z set.

Next priority is you should start farming the 4 lords in the heavenly palace to get key parts so you can get to the saint manifests later. Start early as they all have 3 possible drops so it might take a while. Also, the tricket you can get forge from the parts they drop is also very good. 25% slow is very useful against saint manifests, and stacks with staff weapon's slow. The life steal is crucial for Morrow. The only hero who would prefer something else is Cloud, for whom life steal works against and doesn't need the slow.

Cloud is an exception when it comes to gearing. The ideal gear for Cloud is the forged chaos set, which lacks defense but provides plenty of mastery, which is really all what Cloud needs. You should spare some time through out the game to collect the lighning essense, and use your points/boss points to get chaos stones. You should have enough points to complete the set by wave 11 if you saved all your points. If you spent 250 points to get the 10 mastery weapon, you need 4 more waves of creeps for the points, which is why I recommend against that for Cloud.

Another useful thing to farm is the "unkeeling battle sprit" enchant from the lich boss around the upper right corner. You get up to double damage when you are low on hp. This is especially useful for Cloud.

Try to get to the next phase by the time of the 6th stop attack, and use the stop attack for budha and 12 zuwu. If you lag and spend another stop attack that's fine. Keep up with the warlock quests and you will be fine.

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9. Budha and the 12 zuwu
To get enough defense for budha, you need around 900 defense for hard and 1100 for impossble. To get 900, one of the S armours +10, or the quest Z helmet +10, with any S set +10 should do. Of course if the S set includes armour that is best. To shoot for 1100 you probably need whole S +10 gear. The +100 defense enchant from the Monkey king would also help if you got it.

To kill budha as ranged or Cloud, just make sure to stay far away from him so you don't trigger his rage. As Cloud, just don't be greedy and try to hit it, stay some distance away and let your 3rd/4th skill kill him.

As melee, just hit him once in melee to trigger rage, run away (not too far or his rage cd resets), kill the earth panda creeps to regain some hp, and run back in when rage is gone. Repeat a few times and Budha should be dead.

To have enough damage for zu wu I recommend you finish the final chaos weapon, which is 25 mastery, and get it to +10. This should make quick work of them. Alternatively you can use budha's 18 mastery weapon if he dropped it. If you are stuck with 10 mastery or 12 master weapon, you can still do it but it takes longer and you probably have to use one of your stop attack time to kill them.

To kill the 12 zu wu efficiently as Rondu/Phoebe, gather all of them together, use your 4th skill big aoe on the group, and run around them in circles to keep them in aggro, using your 1st skill to keep applying damage to them so they don't regen. For Cloud it is similar, except you need to stand still when you use 3rd and then run around as it ends with q active. Don't be greedy, just leave half a second early. If you have 50ish mastery you should kill them all in 2 to 3 repeats. For morrow, draw a few out to the right, run away to the left quickly, then run back and start pounding when they loose aggro. This part is hardest for Foxy, as her 4th skill has low damage and is not a good aoe. Hit one to half hp, draw out another, use 4th skill on both, the low hp one should be dead so kill the other one. Repeat and you should be fine. As you becme more skilled you can try to line up more at a time. Foxy has no trouble with any melee boss as compensation so don't worry if you are slowed here.

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10. After 5th state and Before Fuxi
This is a time to catch up on gear. If you didn't finish your chaos weapon, finish it. If you only have 1 S set, try to get a complimenting Z set from Budha, Visasage or HaoTian. Make sure everything is +10. If you are short on gold, go kill 12 zuwu and each of them drops a 900 gold drop. Try to get the enchant from HaoTian and Queen Mother of the West. One is +200 defense and one is +200 move speed. Also keep up with warlock quests. This period should only last to the next stop attack because on the next stop attack you go on Fuxi.

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11. Fuxi
Fuxi has its own phase because it is another hard obstacle. He is ranged, hits hard and fast, and you have little area to kite him.

As Foxy/Phoebe, you have an easier time dealing with him. If you have enough move speed, you can make him loose aggro by running to the corner quickly, and when he turns to walk back you can go hit him.

As Cloud, you basically go in, unleash your combo, teleport out, run in, by which time your 3rd skill will have cd'ed and then you just alternate between 3rd and 4th.

As Rondu or morrow, go in, hit him until you are low, teleport to fishies/treants to regain some healh, and go back in.

As you noticed the 'teleport out and go back in' element in these strats, it is very important to have the poison enchant from spider king. Boss regen kicks in after 5s. So this gives you an extra 5s of boss not regenerating.

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12. Xuan Yuan and Shen nong
It is okay to spend the entire stop attack on Fuxi as Xuan yuan and Shen nong can be done in between waves. Xuan yuan is easy. He channels earth splitter instead of attacking most of the time. Just run away when he finishes and attacks again so you don't insta die from it.

Shen nong is harder, but he is melee. He is like a practice run for saint manifests. You hit him when you are far away or have you disable ready (or slow if you are Morrow), and run in circles around him when you don't.

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13. Saint Manifests
Unless you are playing impossible Morrow, after you finish 6th state from Shen nong, you are ready for saint manifests. Impossible Morrow is another beast. It is really one dificulty higher. Hard Morrow is arguably harder than Impossible other heroes. I havn't beat it, and not many people have.

But for other heroes, you should be able to just use the same gear and just go kill saint manifests. They hit hard and have lots of hp, but they are melee and they have no spells. Use the same tactic as Shen nong.

However, due to their massive hp, especially in Impossible, it takes a long time to kill them. In impossible you can probably do 2 per stop attack for Foxy/Cloud and only one per stop attack for Rondu/Phoebe. It won't take the entire time but you won't have enough time for another.

Foxy is the easiest. Foxy with chaose weapon -50% slow and -25% slow from the trinket slows them down to a crawl, with a 2 second disable every 10s.

Next easiest is Cloud. He can just use combo, teleport out, run in again and combo will be up at the time. Having +200 movespeed enchant makes it faster.

Phoebe sufferes from low damage, but as ranged it is still easy.

For everyone except Cloud, you need to run around. Stay on the bottom half of the area to avoid misclicking on the saint manifests. The trick is to move to the lower left, about 8'o clock to draw the saint, when the saint closes in, run along the bottom edge to the right to 3'o clock. If you have decent movespeed the saint will loose aggro and walk back. Now you run in and hit without it hitting back. Rinse and repeat.Once they walk back to their starting position they will hit you again so run away before that. Rinse and repeat.

Being ranged here just means that you can attack while they are walking towards you and you don't have to run in to start hitting. You can alternate between 8'o clock to 3'o click and 4'o clock to 9'o clock.

And you now completed all 7 states and the rest would be a breeze. In impossible, be careful of wave 33 and 37. You definitely need to use your spells for them. Actually, you probably need to use your spells for all elites past 33, but the others are melee so you can kite them around and wait for cd where you must save cd for 33 and 37 elites.