Survival: Generally on easy mode, you don't die planned. The Solo Youmu record suicides once for some gain in stage 4, but that's a strat you wouldn't be using unless you went for really really high scores. I don't know if other solo humans could apply that suicide, but I high doubt any team or Solo youkai would. Take a look at the WR for you category and see about possible suicides (I don't think you will find those a lot) and bomb placements. There are a few bombs, depending on who you use. My Youmu route uses two, for example. Current WR uses one bomb (but suicides in stage 4, which isn't something I did. It's also not optimal, but infinitely easier to do than doing it without the suicide). If you're cautious or not too confident, there are 3 places to bomb for Youmu. As I said before: Take a look at the WR, it'll always be the most optimized run you will find and if you're not sure why they do something, feel free to shoot me up a PM and I'll take a look at it too and try to understand it. I'm sure that at almost every shot uses a bomb or two somewhere, but not much more than that.
It might be okay to bomb
This section for the point items on solo human characters (I don't believe teams or solo youkai should have any issues with killing things, aside from perhaps Magic/Solo Alice, because her shot is questionably useful for stages). It's a very hectic section and one of those places where you'd probably incorporate a bomb with solo Youmu if you're a careful player since dying there is really easy. For the Last spell rush at the end of the game: Yes. It's a break or make. An otherwise perfectly good run can go to hell there, so practice all spells a lot. When I started easy mode scoring I didn't for the supergraze on the 4th last spell until I had 2.8b I think. But I played solo Youmu, I feel like it's much more significant on solo youkai, if you're planning to play one of those. Regardless of whether you want to include it in your runs, you should start practicing it already because eventually you will want to include it in your runs and it's easier to put something into a run when you can already do it. Practice all 5 of them as they're the most important attacks in the game to capture.
Familiars: Yes, generally speaking it's better to let enemies spawn as many familiars as possible. They're almost exclusive to stage 2, but there are enemies that don't spawn all familiars at the same time, but one after another.
Those fairies you have to be careful on. The maximum they should spawn is 4 familiars, otherwise you will lose the next fairy, which loses score. The problem with letting them spawn 4 familiars however is that the window is extremely tight in which you can kill them off. A few frames at most. So I don't think you should include it until your scores reach a fairly high level of optimization. Unless I am forgetting something,
those fairies that spawn familiar after familiar also exist in stage 3 (So those one-by-one are exclusive to those two stages), and there are a few ways to handle those on easy mode. You could kill them asap, which I wouldn't recommend as that loses some score. What I do in that run is wait for them to spawn familiars and then kill them off before Keine appears on the screen, but the current WR (with Youmu) actually waits even longer and cancels out some of Keine's bullets with the fairy (I was told to try it on normal too, but I got rekt mercilessly, so I dunno if they were joking or not w). I haven't tried doing that on easy, but I imagine it's quite difficult still, so I'm not sure you should go for it. Try it and decide for yourself, I guess
They also exist later in the stage, at which point the thing to keep in mind is that if you don't kill them in time, they'll die due to boss appearance, causing you to lose the time they'd have otherwise given you, so be wary of that. Anyway, it's important to know that you're missing enemies if you wait too long for the fairies in stage 2, but not for those in stage 3.
Another thing to keep in mind is that when there's fairies that spawn bullets after spawning familiars (and there are plenty of those in the game) that you gain most time the moment they spawn their bullets. This is especially important in stage 2 and 3, learn to kill the enemies at that moment. Enemies that spawn the familiars at the same time, but delayed also give more time for a few frames at most, it might be only one or two frames, I'm not sure. Those are most common in stage 1. I don't think anyone every pulled of a flawless stage 1, so don't worry about getting it all right too much. Just makes sure to not fuck up too much by killing a bunch of familiars everywhere. Another thing to keep in mind, that you probably already know, is that the more bullets you cancel out with enemy familiars, the more time you gain. I have no idea how much it is per bullet and probably varies depending on a lot of factors, but I want to go with this is that in a lot of places in the game, you want to lure aimed bullets towards familiars for time gain,
like I did here. Depending on the section, it will require some practice, but I think it's significant enough to go for regardless of skill level. It also clears the bullets out so you don't have to dodge them w. And yes, you are correct when you say that you usually wanna finish them of with as many familiars as possible on the screen, since offscreen familiars give no time.
Gauge: For starters, if you're playing a solo youkai, you can't reach -80, so you'll be stuck at 80 forever. I am sure you noticed that, which is also the reason why solo youkai score like half of what solo human get. The reverse is true for solo humans (Youmu is the exception, but she's the best anyway). So with Solo youkai you're virtually always focused and stay at 80%, and with solo human you're almost always unfocused (You only focus to dodge, really) and stay at -80%. The teams and Youmu have a few spots where they graze (like Reisen's last nonspell or the 4th last spell from Kaguya), but not a lot. So basically unless you play a solo youkai you rarely focus for anything ever. However, if you are facing a difficult attack that you aren't sure to capture if you were to stay unfocused, don't feel bad if you have to focus. Failing a spell would be far worse than losing some time and spellcardvalue. Something a lot of players do is tap focus to dodge. That way you stay at below -80% and still have focused speed for the dodge. It requires some practice to get used to, but once you got the hang of it, it'll come automatically. Just be careful not to tap focus for too long or too often in short succession, otherwise you'll get pushed over -80%. But again, if it's an attack you have troubles with, don't beat yourself up over it. I've fucked that up plenty of times myself. And yes, PoC'ing at below -80% gives you twice the points, so always always do that. The stages are designed so you can basically PoC every item in the game. Not always safely, but it's possible to do.
Solo human grazing is about as useful as it is in PCB (assuming it's not a spellcard and you have no border active). You get 6000 points for every graze you do at below -80%. Additionally, when you finish a spellcard (nonspells too?) you gain points and the number of points you gain are determined by your graze, so it's somewhat important to do some grazing even if you're playing solo human. Don't got for some sick supergraze however as the risk is basically never worth it 8Except Wriggle's last spellcard, due to you having to PoC it anyway, which is why you hug her unfocused even on solo humans, not sure if you've seen that before). But things like
Mystia's last nonspell are things you're supposed to stall one way or another and you can get some easy graze through it. Those are the kinda things you should go for. It's not some gamebreaking secret technique to graze with solo humans and good grazing won't turn a mediocre run into some superplay, but it's significant enough to keep in mind to go for some free graze.
Not destroying familiars in stage potions is probably the hardest part about solo human scoring and it starts with stage 1 and finishes only when you're done, basically (destroying them on Kaguya isn't really much of an issue, but eh, saying from start to finish makes it sound cooler, lol). This is particularly important on stage potions. Most of the time bosses respawn familiars and if they do not respawn them, they're very durable (Marisa has examples for both: She has attacks with very durable, basically indestructible familiars and some where she respawns them). It's a case-to-case thing whether you want to destroy a boss' familiars, but most of the time it goes something like this: If the boss' familiars are durable, they don't respawn, thus you want to finish the attack with all familiars intact (Kaguya's Buddhist Diamond). If the boss' familiars respawn only after you have destroyed one, you will want to milk the familiars as much as possible (midboss Marisa's first nonspell). If the boss spawns familiars in waves and does so regardless of whether you shoot them or not, then you will want to prefer to not destroy them (Mystia's last nonspell). Those 3 statements aren't universally true, but I think they're a decent guideline for what to do on a certain attack. There are some attacks where the boss spawns more familiars regardless of what you do, but you still shoot them (but try not to destroy them), like Keine's nonspells. That's a bit more high level I guess (?), but still something worth noting.
Also note the following: You deal less damage to the boss when you shoot her familiars instead of her directly. This is used in some spellcard to gain more time without losing spellcard value (Like in Keine's first spellcard on easy. With Youmu it's free extra points, the others will require some knowledge on how much you can damage the familiars). And while you can finish off a spellcard by shooting familiars, you can not kill a nonspell like that. The boss will basically remain at 0 health without you ever finish the attack if you just shoot her familiars. This is useful on a few nonspells where you have durable familiars that don't respawn, but you still want to milk them as much as possible: You shoot the boss until she is low of health and them milk the familiars just until before you destroy them (Marisa's first boss nonspell). Tei is the only exception to that. Only her nonspells can die by shooting her familiars. But be careful during the milking. If even a single one of your bullets touch the boss, you'll move on to the next attack. I imagine that being a massive problems with Reimu's homing and with Marisa's napalm to an extent. Careless handling with Youmu's option will also cause that. Sakuya's spread has to be paid attention to as well. Of course, that sort of milking doesn't exist for solo youkai, but they milk differently.
I hope that helps and I also hope I didn't forget anything super important w. If you wanna chat it up some more, join either of the the IRC channels #kusoplay or #pc-99 on the Rizon network. #kusoplay is somewhat NSFW, so if you have a problem with a bunch of weirdos, I suggest you join #pc-99 instead. I'm in both channels a lot under the nick Sakurei or Spacebuffalo.
