Forums → Game Walkthroughs → Sonny Guide: Tips and Tricks for Strategy

Just picked up Sonny on iTunes for your iPhone or iPad? Sonny 2017 has quite a few different mechanics compared to its predecessors, but we've got your back. Whether you're stuck with Sonny or just want to pick up some more information to better equip yourself, our guide is here to give you insight on how the game works. Rather than functioning as an explicit walkthrough, these tips for Sonny will show you how understanding the various mechanics will have you vanquishing the Vileclaw or crushing The Corrupter and beyond in no time.

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FIVE QUICK TIPS FOR VICTORY
Use as much crowd control as possible - Control the battle by using Stuns, Slows, or other weakening effects against your enemies to gain the upper hand. Use abilities like Wound to direct your team's focus onto a specific target and take them down more quickly.
Strike often- It's easy to neglect it, but you must keep Speed balanced when managing your stats because the faster you are, the more you can do before your enemy's next attack.
Time your heals wisely - Learn your enemy's abilities and wait until after the enemy has used its dangerous move before healing your team. Regenerate will cure 1 debuff AT RANDOM, so it may not dispel the one you were hoping for if you use it while you're suffering from multiple status conditions!
The more skills, the better - Especially in the early game, it's much more helpful to have a wide variety of abilities than to marginally upgrade a single skill.
Spend money wisely - Respec your skills to experiment with new builds while you're in the first two zones -- it's only $1 in the beginning, but it gets pricier later on!  Also, items in the Shop are different in each zone; keep your inventory up to date by buying higher level items so your stats don't fall behind.

FOCUS

What is Focus and how does it work?
"Focus" is the blue bar that hovers above each character and partner to the green Health Points (HP) bar. When that blue bar is filled, you get to make your move, but the same goes for your enemy! Your goal is make sure your bar fills faster and more often.

The rate at which your Focus bar replenishes is determined by the Speed stat (the yellow feather icon that appears when you select a character). The higher your Speed, the faster your Focus will build, and the sooner you will be able to attack before the other team.

Increase your rate of attack either indirectly by equipping +Speed items or directly by using an ability like Snap Kick while in battle, which instantly grants 50 Focus.

SPEED
How can Speed give you an advantage in combat?

More chances to hit means more opportunities to apply Chance-on-Hit (a.k.a. Proc) bonuses such as Expose's defense reduction or a double attack with Quick Strike.

If you effectively balance your Speed (thus the rate at which you regain Focus), not only will you have more opportunities to strike as your turn comes faster, you will also be able to use your powerful abilities more often.

Consider the following: An ability like Guard, which grants a hefty +150% Defense bonus and +50% Stun and Focus Drain resist, has a 3-turn duration and a 5-turn cooldown. If your Speed is equal to the opponent's, they may hit you multiple times in the two turns before you have a chance to protect yourself with Guard again. But with a higher Speed, your Focus will consistently build faster, giving you one or even two extra turns to act before the enemy makes their next move.

Each time your Focus bar refills an extra turn before your enemy can retaliate means one less turn spent defenseless during a cooldown period on your strong abilities. Given a high enough Speed gap, you could potentially keep Guard up throughout an entire battle.

Speed is the "silent strength" stat in Sonny. Ignoring Speed to focus only on Power is a great way to see really big numbers when you attack, but without a balance of these two stats, you'll also be dead before you get a chance to take that big swing.

Other stats are, of course, incredibly useful in their own way -- we'll discuss them later on. However, you can only do so much to buff your own attributes, so it's often most effective to lower the enemy's,  too...

DEBUFFS
This enemy has strong defenses! How do I get through them?
"Wound" is a crucial ability in the early stages of the game for whittling down sturdy targets.

The Wound ability applies the Bleed debuff, which deals extra damage every time the target is struck with an attack. It's especially useful at early stages of the game, when the damage is practically equal to a double-strike.

Your allies will also focus their attacks on Bleeding targets. Use this to your advantage to have your whole team target an enemy that needs to be quickly eliminated.

Amplify the effects of Wound by pairing with the right abilities:
Super Dazed enemies are extremely vulnerable to attacks. Combine this temporary weakness with a direct attack and the huge bonus damage from Wound, and the target won't survive another turn.
On a similar note, Blood Strike will steal a large amount of extra health from a Super Dazed enemy. This can be a life-saver in a fight if your Regenerate is on cooldown!

Armor is the enemy of damage. Use a combination of Passive abilities and skills to negate the target's defenses:
Expose is a Passive ability that has a 20% Proc chance to reduce the enemy's Defense by a whopping -75% for the next hit it takes. Strike with a high-damage attack after an enemy is Exposed to deal a strong blow to even the tankiest tank.
Drill Strike is a skill perfect for raw damage... it completely ignores 100% of the target's Defense. Time your Drill Strike for the moment your target falls under 35% hp to deal an additional +50% damage and quickly execute a low-health enemy.

This enemy has a lot of dangerous attacks! How do I prevent it from overwhelming my team?
&lt>The most direct way to keep an enemy from attacking you is to stun them with an ability such as Break. A stun completely stops the target from acting on its next turn. Time the use of your stuns wisely. A well-placed stun on the right target can:

Stop an enemy if you know they're about to use a debuff ability against you such as Poison or Bleed.  This is especially effective against weak targets that like to throw out a DoT at the start of a fight so you can kill them before they have a chance to strike and save your Regenerate for a more crucial moment in battle.
Stall for time if you need just one more turn before an ability on cooldown becomes available.
Prevent a dangerous, super-powerful attack from an enemy that has a berserk ability such as Rage. Many of these enemy buffs last only one turn and have long cooldowns. You can completely turn the tide of battle if you wait until they berserk to use your stun.

Just as it helps you to have as high Speed as possible, making the enemy as slow as possible is critical in battle. The Cripple skill reduces a target's Speed by -35% for 3 turns with a 4-turn cooldown. If your Speed is high enough, you can keep an enemy constantly Crippled.

SYNERGY
As we now know, having a slower enemy means having a distinct advantage over them in turn rate, and it also means elongating the duration of your other effects. Combine debuffs and attacks to maximize your Crowd Control (CC) and damage in battle:
Cripple + Stun = Longer stun, because it will take +35% longer for the target's focus to regenerate enough to end the turn, and thus end the stun.
Cripple + Wound/Cripple + Expose = More chances for your team to strike the enemy before Wound/Expose wears off, leading to a lot of extra damage.
Cripple + Suppress = Best used against enemies with Heal over Time (HoT) abilities. Being slowed means longer downtime before they receive their next heal and more time for you to go for a killing blow.
The Claw skill deals an additional +30% damage against Physically debuffed enemies. If you learn to pair your Physical CC and stretch them out as long as possible with slows, you can consistently inflict massive damage on your target.

SKILLS
Should I invest Skill Points in multiple skills or upgrade one skill multiple times?
Fill your entire skill wheel before you even consider upgrading an ability. Having more skills gives you two advantages:
A variety of skills gives you a variety of strengths. You'll have the advantage of multiple tactics in battle to choose from instead of being limited to only a handful of abilities.
A wide repertoire of abilities will also help prevent downtime between turns where you are stuck with only your basic attack available.
There's an obvious advantage to being able to use two different attacks for hundreds of damage consecutively than to have one attack with +25 damage that then goes on cooldown.

Should I respec my skill points? When?

Try new strategies by experimenting with different skills to find a playstyle that works for you.

Respeccing is very cheap in the early game, only $1! It will not stay this inexpensive forever, so it's a good idea play around with various builds while you can do so without hurting your pockets.

SURVIVING
What can I do to increase my survivability?
If you expect to take a large amount of damage in the next few turns from a charging or berserking enemy, you can protect yourself with an ability such as Guard, which grants +150% Defense as well as +50% Stun and Focus Drain resistance.
Other stats can help you survive in battle, too. Pay attention to the kind of damage the enemy is dealing your team:

Fast enemy with several, rapid attacks?  Defense is your direct protection from damage.
Slower enemy with heavy hitting blows OR an enemy using Defense-penetrating attacks? Vitality increases your HP to allow you to take more damage and still survive.
Non-Physical damage cutting through your health? Resistances will protect you by diminishing specific types of damage by a certain percentage.

Why should I pay attention to HP, beyond the obvious?
Many elements of battle can changed based on current HP. Abilities such as Drill Strike deals +50% damage to targets under 35% HP. Also, some enemies berzerk when they fall under half health, and some deal increased damage when you are under 50%.
Focus down berzerking targets quickly or stun them when they drop into the danger zone, and keep yourself healed when facing targets that gain strength while you're low HP.

How do I get the most out of my healing skills?
Be patient when fighting an enemy with dangerous abilities. Let them use their high-damage attack or debuff ability first, and then you can completely negate it with a well-timed heal.
The Regenerate skill can dispel 1 debuff at random. If you've been affected by a Slow and then a Poison, it's a 50/50 chance that your heal will dispel the Slow instead of the Poison. Sometimes, it's best to wait out the weaker debuffs before you attempt to dispel the stronger one.

Keep yourself alive without spending the Regenerate cooldown by using Lifesteal. You can find items with a Lifesteal percentage which will take an amount of the damage you deal and give it back to you as health <em>or</em> you can use abilities such as Blood Bath and Blood Strike.

STATS
Not all stats are created equal! A single point into your four main stats, Vitality, Power, Defense, and Speed, can yield significant returns.
For example, increasing your Vitality by just one point will increase your HP by 7 points. Thus, an item that gives a few more Vitality points can add a sizable amount to your overall Health.

Speed: You thought we were done talking about Speed! In addition to raising your Focus regeneration rate, the Speed stat also increases your chance to hit <em>and</em> to dodge enemy attacks. A "Miss" on an attack deals absolutely no damage and has no effect whatsoever on the target.

Defense: This stat offers protection from direct attacks, meaning you can't lessen the damage from indirect damage like DoT effects, but you can significantly protect yourself from the enemy's strikes.

Try to maintain a balance of Defense and Vitality with your offensive stats if you notice the enemy is knocking out large chunks of your HP even after being debuffed. The damage you prevent each turn with a higher defense adds up quickly and can mean the difference between life or death.

It's possible to have high Defense with lower Power and still deal impressive damage. Abilities like Iron Slam take a large percentage of your Defense and add it directly as damage to your attack. Combining Iron Slam with a skill like Guard (which adds 150% Defense) can yield crippling results.

This guide is in progress! Feel free to post your own tips or as for help.