Badge Dojo Lightning stage 2

The second chapter of the Lightning Dojo keeps one grid for every stage, and every unit on it is a second form. Lineup 1 fills lane 1 from the front: Electroar in row 1, Cheerlet in row 2 and Sparkdoe in row 3. Lane 2 contains Voltling in row 1 with Synthhog behind it in row 2. Lane 3 is left empty.

The jump from the first chapter is the reason these stages feel harder. Enemies hit harder and arrive in bigger groups, and the board answers with control rather than raw damage. Electroar pushes enemies back, Voltling paralyses them, Sparkdoe's spear paralyses a whole line, and Synthhog marks enemies so everything else hits them harder. Cheerlet sits in the middle of it all, healing and protecting.

The layout leans left. Two lanes are covered and the right one is open, so enemies from lane 3 drift inward onto Voltling.

If that open lane troubles you, the most common alternative shifts the same core one lane to the right. Electroar, Cheerlet and Sparkdoe move into lane 2, Voltling moves to row 1 of lane 3 and Surgehoof joins it in row 3, which leaves lane 1 empty instead.

The pages that follow take each unit in turn, then the alternatives.

The 2-1 grid is unchanged, and this page is about Electroar at the head of lane 1.

Electroar is an unusual front unit. It is a support, not a tank, and its attack is an arcing wave that hits an area and pushes enemies back. That push is why it leads lane 1. Every enemy that reaches the front gets shoved away again, so the lane stays clear longer, and Sparkdoe in row 3 gets more time to spear the line.

Electroar is the second form of the Zappur line, and its next form, Blitzmane, is one of the most important units in the next chapter. Learning how pushback works now pays off there.

Its weakness is health. A support at the front takes hits it was not built for, so Electroar depends on Cheerlet directly behind it. The dance heals it and raises its defence, and Cheerlet's one-time protection can save it from a bad moment.

In one alternative used on these early stages, Electroar moves to the head of the middle lane instead. Synthhog then stands in row 2 of lane 1 with Sparkdoe in row 4, while Buzzbeak, the evolved form of Sparkeet, stands in row 1 of lane 3 with Nimbuzzy in row 2. That alternative covers every lane but gives up Cheerlet's healing.

This stage keeps the chapter's grid, so the focus shifts to Cheerlet in row 2 of lane 1.

Cheerlet is the evolved form of Cheerling, and it dances without pause, hurting nearby enemies while it heals allies around it and raises their attack and defence. On top of that, the first time one of those allies is about to fall, it makes the whole area invincible for a moment. That one save is often the difference between a narrow win and a loss.

Its cell is the most connected one on the board. Electroar is directly ahead of it, Sparkdoe directly behind, and Voltling and Synthhog stand in the next lane at rows 1 and 2. Cheerlet's dance can touch nearly the whole team from there, and it is shielded by Electroar's pushback.

Because the save happens only once, timing matters. If Cheerlet's protection is used up early in a fight, the rest of the wave goes without it, so the units around it still need the health to survive on their own.

In the alternative for this middle part of the chapter, the middle lane becomes a column: Buzzbeak in row 1, Electroar in row 2 and Nimbuzzy in row 3. Synthhog and Sparkdoe take lane 1. Without Cheerlet, that version relies on killing faster instead of surviving longer.

On the fourth stage of the chapter, this page covers Sparkdoe in row 3 of lane 1, the main damage of the layout.

Sparkdoe throws a heavy lightning spear that passes through a line of enemies and paralyses them. It is the evolved form of Voltfawn, and the piercing is again the reason for its depth. From row 3, behind Electroar and Cheerlet, the spear runs up lane 1 and hits everything queued there.

The pairing with Electroar is what makes lane 1 work. Electroar pushes enemies back into a line, and Sparkdoe's spear then passes through all of them at once, paralysing the group. Pushed and paralysed enemies spend a long time not attacking, which protects the two units ahead of Sparkdoe.

Sparkdoe also benefits from Synthhog in the next lane. Enemies that Synthhog has marked are fragile, so the spear does more damage to them.

The weakness is coverage. Sparkdoe's spear stays in lane 1, so the middle lane relies on Voltling and Synthhog, and the empty lane 3 has nobody at all. If enemies are leaking down the right side while lane 1 is clean, the problem is not Sparkdoe but the board's shape.

The evolved form of Sparkdoe is Zapantler, which carries the damage in the last chapter.

Halfway through the chapter, this page is about Voltling at the head of lane 2.

Voltling is the evolved form of Voltkit. It strikes from the shadows with an area attack that paralyses, so it is the board's real front-line guardian. Electroar on its left is a support; Voltling is the unit built to stand in row 1 and keep taking hits.

It also has the hardest job. Lane 3 is empty, so enemies from that side drift inward and end up attacking Voltling as well. Its paralysing strikes are what keep that double load manageable, because a paralysed group cannot hit back.

Synthhog stands directly behind it, and Cheerlet is one lane over in row 2, close enough for the dance to heal and strengthen it. Those two connections matter more than Voltling's own level in most runs.

In another alternative used from this stage on, the front row is left empty altogether. In that alternative, Synthhog stands in row 2 of lane 1 with Sparkdoe in row 4, Electroar and Cheerlet take rows 2 and 3 of the middle, and Nimbuzzy sits in row 3 of lane 3. That substitute layout gives enemies a long walk before contact and uses Nimbuzzy's paralysing clouds instead of a guardian. It suits players without a strong Voltling.

The grid is the same once more, and this page looks at Synthhog in row 2 of lane 2, the specialist behind Voltling.

Synthhog marks enemies across a wide area so they are scouted and fragile, and the marked enemies take damage when the mark runs out. It does little damage directly. Its value is that every other unit hits marked enemies harder, and the burst at the end of each mark adds a little extra on top.

The cell explains the mark's reach. From row 2 of the middle lane, Synthhog sits close to both lanes in use, and a wide-area mark covers the enemies in front of Voltling and those coming down lane 1 toward Electroar. Sparkdoe's spear, in particular, gains a lot from enemies being fragile.

This stage has more recorded alternatives than any other page on the grid. In one alternative, only Electroar remains in lane 1, Cheerlet moves to row 1 of the middle with Surgehoof in row 2, and Zapooch stands in row 1 of lane 3 with Sparkdoe in row 2. Another alternative moves Electroar to row 3 of lane 3 behind Zapooch and Sparkdoe, and a further variant uses Hippiehog, the evolved form of Cavyzap, in place of Surgehoof. Those alternatives give up Synthhog and Voltling for a full front row, which suits teams with Zapooch.

By the seventh stage, the open lane 3 is the part of the grid that decides most runs.

In Lineup 1 nobody stands in lane 3, so enemies there have a free path until they turn inward. They usually end up in front of Voltling, which is already holding the middle. Electroar's pushback and Sparkdoe's spear stay in lane 1, so the right side gets help only from Synthhog's marks and Cheerlet's dance from one lane away.

That is fine while Voltling holds. When it falls, the middle and the right are open together, and Synthhog is next in line with very little health. If your losses start on the right, this is the cause.

Two recorded alternatives deal with it directly. In one alternative, the middle lane carries the damage: Surgehoof in row 1, Sparkdoe in row 2 and Nimbuzzy in row 3, with Cheerlet in row 4 of lane 1 and Boltskipper in row 4 of lane 3. As a substitute, Boltskipper fires an electric orb that binds enemies in place, which stops the right side from drifting. In the other alternative, Electroar, Cheerlet and Sparkdoe move to the middle, Surgehoof stands in row 2 of lane 1, and Zapooch fills row 2 of lane 3. As the replacement on the left, Surgehoof fires shock waves that splash onto nearby enemies, with extra splashes against Water enemies.

Late in the chapter, this page looks closer at the alternative that leaves the front row empty, which shows up on the second half of the grid.

In that alternative, nothing stands in row 1. In lane 1 sit Synthhog in row 2 and Sparkdoe in row 4. The middle lane has Electroar in row 2 with Cheerlet behind it in row 3. Lane 3 has the substitute Nimbuzzy in row 3. In that alternative, enemies walk a long way before contact, and the whole time they are inside Synthhog's marks and Nimbuzzy's clouds.

Nimbuzzy is the evolved form of Fluffle. It summons lightning clouds that keep chipping at an area, switching between white clouds and dark clouds that paralyse, and moves them with lightning arcs. In that substitute layout it replaces the guardian: paralysed enemies stop advancing, which is what a guardian would otherwise do by blocking.

The trade-off is that nothing tough takes hits. When enemies do arrive, Electroar is the first unit they meet, and it relies on its pushback and on Cheerlet's dance to hold. The layout works best when your damage is high enough to finish waves during the long approach.

Compared with Lineup 1, this alternative covers lane 3 and needs no Voltling, but it depends more on Nimbuzzy and Sparkdoe being strong.

Near the end of the chapter, the useful question is levels, and which unit to raise when a run keeps failing.

For Lineup 1, a sensible order starts with Voltling, because it holds the middle and absorbs the drift from the empty lane 3. Cheerlet comes next, since its healing and one-time save reach almost every unit. Sparkdoe follows as the main damage, then Electroar, then Synthhog, whose value comes through the other units rather than its own numbers.

Reading the loss helps. If the right side breaks, Voltling needs levels. If Electroar falls early, lane 1 is under too much pressure and Sparkdoe is not killing fast enough. If everyone survives but enemies are still alive at the end, the damage is short.

There is also an alternative here that keeps Cheerlet's healing while covering every lane. In that alternative, Electroar, Cheerlet and Boltskipper fill rows 1 to 3 of the middle; Sparkdoe stands in row 3 of lane 1; Voltling moves to row 1 of lane 3 with Surgehoof in row 3. In that alternative, Boltskipper's binding orb holds enemies still in the middle, and Surgehoof's splashing shock waves cover the right. It is a good option if those substitutes are already at second form.

The final stage of the chapter uses the same grid, and it rewards a team that has grown into every unit.

Lineup 1 is unchanged: Electroar, Cheerlet and Sparkdoe down lane 1, Voltling and Synthhog in the middle, lane 3 open. The plan has been the same all chapter. Electroar pushes enemies back into a line, Sparkdoe spears and paralyses that line, Voltling paralyses the middle, Synthhog makes everything fragile, and Cheerlet heals and saves whoever is about to fall. On this last stage, none of those connections can fail.

The last recorded alternative takes a different shape. In it, Synthhog stands in row 2 of lane 1; the middle lane of that alternative has Electroar in row 2, Sparkdoe in row 3 and Boltskipper in row 4; Cheerlet stands in row 2 of lane 3. In that alternative, Cheerlet's dance sits on the right where Lineup 1 has nobody, and the middle stacks two kinds of control with the spear and the binding orb.

If the stage is close, retry before changing anything, because Cheerlet's save being spent too early can decide it. If it keeps failing, raise Voltling.

The third chapter moves to third forms, with Blitzmane, the evolved form of Electroar, at the centre.