Soldier 11Build and Guide

Soldier 11 is a S-Rank Melee Fire Combat Agent having a simple but effective combat style, with some room for skillful play. Her kit is easy to understand, to execute and fits right into various combat scenarios and team compositions. While her damage isn’t Meta-Defining, she does just enough to hold her own in endgame content, making her a reasonable choice of investment until you set your eyes on Limited DPS considering she is available from the Standard Banner.

The entirety of her kit consists of simple direct damage dealing abilities almost exclusively, with the only exception being attacks which feature the presence of her Signature mechanic “Fire Suppression”. Such attacks are subject to a special timing mechanic, which states that when activating the ability in question “at the right moment”, she will use an Enhanced version of the attack instead. The so-called right moment requires you to execute the desired attack input roughly around the ending of the current attack animation without any other inputs beforehand aka no button mashing! To understand and get hang of this timing, we highly recommend messing around with her kit in VR mode.

Her damage is balanced, assuming you’ll achieve Fire Suppression on most of her attacks, making pacing your attack input essential. Fortunately, Solder 11 has ways to forcefully use Fire Suppression on many of her attacks, thus even if you are not the best at executing her special timing mechanic, she is still playable at a good level. With that covered, let's discuss rewards Fire Suppression offers and how the rest of her kit plays out!

Her Basic Attack consists of a 4 part combo, which makes up for a bulk of her damage and will be used for the majority of her field time. At baseline, they deal very underwhelming Physical Damage but can be empowered via Fire Suppression. With the right timing, her Basic Attacks gain higher base multipliers, deal Fire Damage and bonus effects from her Core Passive. All this should make it clear that timing your attacks right should be your utmost priority.

Her Special Attack isn't worth using whereas her EX Special is very valuable. Her EX Special produces a massive Slash in front and around her, dealing strong Fire Damage to all enemies in radius and grants Soldier 11 a special Charge based buff. This buff grants her guaranteed Fire Suppression for next 8 attacks (regardless if timed correctly or not, buff does not stack) in next 15 seconds. Due to its high Energy costs and strong damage output, this ability is best saved for Stunned Boss enemies or in large AoE situations. Alternatively it can be utilized for generating guaranteed Fire Suppression Charges in a pinch when you are not confident in landing correct timings in a particular combat scenario.

In a similar vein to her EX Special, her Chain Attack and Ultimate also deal strong Cleave based Fire Damage while granting her identical Fire Suppression Charge buff. As a primary DPS, her Ultimate should be your primary choice of usage unless running an alternative DPS option. If chosen, it is best to use Soldier 11’s Ultimate after the enemy is Stunned, to make use of Stun Damage Multiplier. That said, with the addition of these two methods to generate Fire Suppression Charges, it will be very rare for her to be without them. However those who can avoid relying on these charges, will be able to use all of her strongest moves at most opportune times instead when the enemy is at their most vulnerable, leading to overall higher flexibility and damage.

Soldier 11’s Dodge, Dodge Counter, Dash Attack and Assists are all standard attacks, except Dash Attack can be upgraded via Fire Suppression granting it higher base multipliers, Fire Damage and boost from her Core Passive.

Rounding off her kit, she gains 2 strong Passives from her Core Passives and Additional Ability. As we discussed earlier, her Core Passive grants all attacks enhanced via Fire Suppression (Basic and Dash Attacks) a whopping 70% Damage Increase. This reinforces the importance of having these Charges or executing her attacks with right timing. Meanwhile, her Additional Ability is activated by having another character of the same Attribute or Faction as her in the team, granting her an unconditional 10% Fire Damage and an additional 22.5% Fire Damage when attacking Stunned enemies.

In conclusion, Soldier 11 presents herself as a strong DPS option having both - reasonably strong burst damage options when aligning her most powerful attacks with enemy Stun windows, as well as dealing decent sustained damage thanks to her constant access to Fire Suppression enhanced attacks. While playing her perfectly offers greater Flexibility, not doing so isn’t punishing, making her a great option to build early and serve you well until you settle on more premium teams.