So you have some 6 star characters and you’re looking to start putting the hurt on the Black Order in World Boss mode so you can get those sweet, sweet Black Anti-Matter and Norn Stones of Chaos to advance your characters even further. The problem is the Black Order is putting the hurt on you! What do you do? Hopefully this guide will provide you some insight on where to improve to show the Black Order who’s the boss!
This guide will assume you know the basics about advancing characters and will go in depth with getting the most out of those characters for the harder modes of the game (WB, AB, TL).
Character Mastery
A lot of people will not fully master a character. Sometimes it’s because they do not have the Norn Stones and sometimes it’s because they do not see it as useful. While this is fine, if you are using that character for their leadership, team up bonuses or as a striker, you will want to focus on advancing their character mastery to the maximum rank. Each additional level will provide you with bonus stats.
Here are two examples of how mastery changes your characters stats.
Example 1: Sharon Rogers.
Example 2: Elektra.
Stats
Before I get into Gears, ISO sets and Comic Cards I’ll list a few stats and their caps. Also the flat number of points needed to increase that stat by 1% at level 60. Info gathered from the spreadsheet provided by /u/DeadlyInfestus here is a bit outdated for a few stats.
| Stat | Max Increase | Needed for 1% increase at Level 60 |
|---|---|---|
| Movement Speed | 130% | 333 |
| Attack Speed | 130% | 333 |
| Recovery Rate | 250% | 200 |
| Skill Cooldown | 50% | 200 |
| Defense Penetration | 50% | 200 |
| Dodge | 75% | 133 |
| Critical Rate | 75% | 133 |
| Elemental Damage Resist | 200% | 133 |
| Crowd Control Time Decrease | 75% | 133 |
| Critical Damage | 200% | 100 |
Thanks to /u/qfuw and /u/tub3strik3 for correcting and adding some stat caps.
Thanks to /u/b0redom for this post that shows the stat weights and the formula to calculate the required points needed for a 1% increase at level 60.
This is the general consensus of stats with the most value and an explanation of why that stat is strong.
Highly Desired Stats:
- Skill Cooldown – You WANT to be near the Skill Cooldown cap of 50%. Nearly all of your damage in every mode comes from using your characters skills. If you are having trouble in any mode and your skill cooldown is not close to 50% then get it closer! Keep in mind you get up to 14% from your Alliance and should balance as such. Also, Skill Cooldown can roll as an innate stat on some characters gears but not all.
- All Attack – Increases both Physical and Energy damage stats by a flat percentage. Since All Attack affects all characters it gets so much mileage as a stat and should be the second priority under Skill Cooldown for Comic Cards.
- Attack Speed –Attack Speed increases the casting speed of skills and the animation time the skill takes to complete. Considering the return rate on gear Comic Cards are one of the easiest ways to get a large percentage of Attack Speed.
- Physical/Energy Attack – Again, a base increase in the important damage stats. While this does not affect every character it should not be considered a throwaway stat because it can pump your damage percentages up fairly high when you acquire it on Comic Cards.
- Dodge – A great increase for all characters in all modes. /u/B0redom showed us here that the dodge percentage you see in your skill sheet is not always the percentage you have in certain game modes. While this does diminish its value some it is still a great stat to have across all characters and increases their survivability.
The following stats I feel are interchangeable and have similar overall values:
- Max HP – Another passive increase in survivability for all characters. While not as strong as Dodge when compared one to one it is better than other options that cards provide.
- All Defense/Physical Defense/Energy Defense – Another bump for survivability but in the game modes that matter you want to actively avoid that damage altogether if possible. Defense will let you take slightly less damage in the grand scheme of things for when you do get hit.
- Recovery Rate – A nice survivability boost but again, it will not affect all characters. Also the values you get will give you a slight boost in overall recovery rate for characters but there are much more desirable stats from cards.
- Critical Rate – While this seems like an excellent way to increase your damage output, unless you pair it with Critical Damage it will fall short of other attack boosting stats.
- Critical Damage – Another nice way to increase your damage but you need to pair it with Critical Rate to be efficient.
The following stats I have unranked:
- Defense Penetration - /u/B0redom provided us with this post that explains Defense Penetration. The basic idea I get from it is that it's decent but not game changing. As such, I'm unsure where I would rank it. If the enemy has resists (like WB) then defense penetration is calculated before resists and it makes resists more valuable and decreases the value of defense penetration.
- Elemental Damage Resists - You can only acquire these from the gear 5 slot (except for BO characters). Since your Gear 5 slot is such a valuable stat boosting slot I do not recommend you focusing on an elemental damage resist here. Also, since there are five of them and the max you could get is two from a single obelisk, combine that with how costly it is to replace an obelisk that you want to keep, it seems like a waste of a powerful stat boosting slot.
- Crowd Control Time Decrease - Reduces the duration of DOTs and character disabling effects (stun, fear, web, etc). I would not recommend rolling for this on any gear.
- Ignore Dodge - This stat can only be acquired from the Special Gears you can equip in Gear Slot 5. This stat, as its name implies, allows you to ignore a targets dodge when attacking. Corvus is the only World Boss where this is really an issue and we would recommend you use Ignore Dodge strikers instead of using the special gear slot for this. It's also moderately useful in TL and BW, as well as Speed Hero Extreme Alliance Battle, in which the Frost Beast has a high Dodge rate. There are also a few characters with Ignore Dodge Leadership if needed.
Gear Upgrades
Gear levels plays a large role in the overall power level of a character. It also increases their usefulness as strikers or team-up characters. There are four gear slots and I will refer to them as Gear 1 through 4. For clarity, Gear 1 is the Damage Gear slot, Gear 2 is the Defense Gear slot, Gear 3 is the Special Defense Gear slot and Gear 4 is the Special Damage Gear slot.
“All these numbers, upgrade options, change options? What does it mean!? How do you choose who to upgrade and when?”
For anyone you use in the field for any amount of time (in Story, Special, WB, or TL) you’ll get a lot of mileage out of upgrading all four of their gears. This will increase their damage, defenses, HP and special stats. Thus increasing their overall damage output and survivability for those modes.
Each gear has two innate stats that will increase as the level of the gear increases. The second innate stat will be added when the gear is upgraded to level 6. They will also gain gear “options” as you level up the gear. The options are just a base amount of stats added to the gear. I will go in depth on the options later.
For me personally, I believe it is most beneficial to upgrade the gear levels in threes. IE from 6 to 9, 9 to 12, 12 to 15. This is because at levels 6, 9, 12, 15, 17 and 20 you get an additional option on the gear. While increasing the gear from 6 to 7 to 8 will increase the innate stats, you will see the biggest returns every three levels (or two in the case of the 17 upgrade). Here is a chart of how many Gear Up Kits and Dimensional Debris are required to advance each gear through their levels. After gear level 15 you will be required to provide a characters biometrics (or Black Anti-Matter for Black Order characters) to advance further. This is offset by requiring less GUKs and DDs but has an increased gold cost.
How high should you advance characters’ gears?
For me, that number is Gear Level 17. While advancing from 15 to 17 requires bios (or BAMs) I believe it is a relatively small investment for a large gain. Also, after level 15 it’s no longer an “upgrade one level per mat increase”. After 15 you have to invest materials to increase the rank up level to 100%. In the beginning this is weighted in your favor and usually requires no more than 6 attempts (depending on RNG) to get them from 15 to 17.
So what gear do you advance first if you are low on mats?
Gear 1, the weapon gear slot, should be your primary focus (at least to gear level 15) before the others. This will increase your characters damage quite a bit and help you in all modes.
After you advance the weapon gear slot to 15 it’s up to you what slot you advance next. The general consensus is that you advance Gear 1, then 4, then 2 and 3 in any order. This is because in the hardest game mode (World Bosses) you generally avoid getting hit and you want to put out the most damage possible.
What options do you roll on your gears? How do you decide?
- Gear 1 – Your damage gear. You will want to determine the base damage type for your characters (as highlighted in red here). Using this as a base, Corvus’ damage scales off of Physical Attack, we then know that all the options will want to be either physical or all attack. Once you roll all options it will look similar to this. Read the note below about the "Per Level" option for Option Slots 1 and 2 of the gear.
- Gear 2 – Your defense gear. This one is pretty standard across all characters. All Defense in every slot. If you’re looking to min-max you have the option to roll your lower defense as “per level” in the first slot. Example
- Gear 3 – Your special defense gear. This one is always HP or Dodge. None of the other options provide you with enough return to be justifiable. How do you decide if it should be HP or Dodge? That is largely up to you. A gear 3 rolled with dodge can provide you between 7.5-9% additional dodge whereas if you roll for HP you can gain between 2670 and 3110 HP. The tradeoff is up to you.Example
- Gear 4 – Your special damage gear. This one is highly debated and largely a personal choice. Critical Rate, Critical Damage, Defense Penetration and Skill Cooldown all have their uses. In the Cards section below I have detailed some breakpoints you want to hit for certain stats before working on others. As such, I will refrain from commenting much on this choice for now. Example
- Gear 5 - The Special Gear Slot. This is where you can equip an Obelisk for a boost of stats. /u/Malekith24 put a nice write-up in his guide here.
Note on Gear 1: At long as you are above level 25 the 45% bonus by the Per Level option is better than the flat increase granted by Option Slot 1. At level 60, Option Slot 2 with the Per Level option can max out at +32 for your main attack stat when it rolls 52.5%. The flat rolls for Option 2 max out at 29. It's up to you if you want to roll for those extra 3 attack points for Option Slot 2. Thank you /u/DrChrisHeard for doing this math for us.
Note on Dodge: /u/b0redom posted this about dodge and guaranteed dodge is a very good read.
Skill Upgrades
Here is the layout of the skills and what people commonly refer to them as, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 star for when you gain them by advancing a characters rank.
How do you know what to upgrade? How high should I upgrade it?
If it is a primary skill they use to attack or gives them a stat boost, shield or summon, it is generally a good idea to upgrade it. Also, if it is a primary attacker for any mode they will benefit from the upgrades.
How far you upgrade it is ultimately up to you and your gold. For me, a good place is 4 unless it provides some sort of buff, shield or summon. Those usually go to Rank 6 in most cases. Also, if it is a character I use in multiple modes then there is more benefit to raising it to 6.
Understanding the type and how much damage a skill does and how that damage scales.
In example One, the skill reads:
Physical Attack 124% Physical Damage
Add Physical Damage 146
The Breakdown:
Physical Attack 124% – This means the skill will scale off the characters Physical Attack stat. Also, the base damage will be 124% of the characters Physical Attack Stat.
Physical Damage – This means the skill will deal physical damage. It will also be mitigated by the Physical Defense stat.
Add Physical Damage 146 – This means each hit will add an additional 146 damage to the calculation.
In example Two, the skill reads:
Physical Attack 115% Energy Damage
Add Energy Damage 606
The Breakdown:
Physical Attack 115% - This means the skill will scale off the characters Physical Attack stat. Also, the base damage will be 115% of the characters Physical Attack Stat.
Energy Damage – This means the skill will deal energy damage. It will also be mitigated by the Energy Defense stat.
Add Energy Damage 606 – This means each hit will add an additional 606 damage to the calculation.
I provided both examples to show that even though example two does energy damage it still scales from the physical attack stat.
Whenever you rank up a skill it will increase the “Add Damage” bonus. Not the base % damage bonus. While it may not seem like much skill upgrades can push your characters over the edge and can provide a significant damage boost. Do not underestimate them.
Also, if the Add Damage bonus is significantly lower, such as double digits, that generally means the skill is a multi-hit skill. The best way to test skills before you rank them up is to enter Preview Skill mode with the character and play around with them a bit.
At this time, I do not believe that the all attack option used in gear slot 1 provides any additional damage to the skill beyond the first damage % calculation. If anyone knows different please let me know.
Tier 2 Advancement
Advancing a character to Tier 2 requires a substantial investment and, for most characters, that investment is returned. In my example from Character Mastery above you can see the change in Sharon Rogers stats when she advances to T2.
To advance a character to Tier 2 it requires that the Characters Rank and Mastery be Level 6, as well as the character being Level 60. It also requires that all four of the characters gears be level 20. In addition to that, it also requires these materials for advancement
| Gold | Biometrics | Norn Stones | Rank 1 Black Anti-Matter | Norn Stones of Chaos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500,000 | 150 | 300 | 800 | 1000 |
Rank 1 Black Anti-Matter (BAM) and Norn Stones of Chaos (CNS) are acquired from defeating World Bosses. On average you gain slightly more than 30 Rank 1 BAM and 10 CNS from each World Boss defeat. While you can gain the required BAM to advance a character to Tier 2 in less than 27 WB kills it will require at least 100 WB kills to acquire the CNS.
/u/Malekith24 has an excellent guide on what characters are strong at Tier 2 right now. While this is not the end all be all list of characters to advance, these characters will give you a leg up on WB, AB and TL modes.
ISO-8 Sets
ISO-8 Sets are a great way to increase the overall potential of a character.
There are two things you need to do to get the benefits of an ISO-8 set.
The first is use the “Change Set” option to roll the set you want. Now this can become quite pricey as it costs 10,000 gold per roll. Also, it has a chance to roll any set in the game (there are 61). The best way to roll for sets is to have two or more sets that you would be happy with for a character and stop on the first one you hit.
The second thing you need to do is equip the necessary ISO-8s to activate the set. You do not have to match the exact order of the set. You only need to equip all the ISO-8s required. The ISO-8 Rank that you equip does not matter for activating the set.
These are a list of the most powerful ISO-8 sets in my opinion. They are in no particular order.
Healing Sets:
- I Am Also Groot (8-ISO Set) - All Attack, Max HP, Crit Rate, Crown Control Time, Recovery Rate.
- Stark's Backing (8-ISO Set) - All Defense, Max HP, Crit Damage, Dodge, Movement Speed.
- Two Heads (6-ISO Set) - All Attack, Max HP, Dodge, Crowd Control Time.
- Silent Night (6-ISO Set) - All Defense, Atk Speed, Dodge, Crowd Control Time.
- HAIL, HYDRA (4-ISO Set) - All Defense, Max HP, Atk Speed. Honorable mention for this guy. He's the only "on attack" Healing set.
Offensive Sets:
- Hawk's Eye (8-ISO Set) - All Attack, Crit Rate, Crit Damage, Dodge, Cooldown Time.
- Power of Angry Hulk (8-ISO Set) - All Attack, Atk Speed, All Defense, Crit Rate, Defense Penetration.
- Overdrive (8-ISO Set) - All Attack, All Defense, Crit Rate, Crit Damage, Defense Penetration.
- Power of Symbiote (6-ISO Set) - All Attack, Max HP, Atk Speed, Crit Rate.
- Good Luck and Bad Luck (6-ISO Set) - All Attack, All Defense, Atk Speed, Crit Damage.
- Ultron's Hatred (6-ISO Set) - All Attack, Atk Speed, All Defense, Crit Rate.
- Power of Insect (6-ISO Set) - All Attack, All Defense, Crit Damage, Defense Penetration.
Honorable Mention
- Drastic Density Enhancement (8-ISO Set) - All Attack, Max HP, Crit Damage, Crown Control Time, Defense Penetration. I mention this one because it's an "on attack" Max HP Shield.
"That’s a lot of sets that you said are powerful. How do I know which to choose?"
Largely the set you choose is up to you. For me, if I know the character is going to be in the field for a decent amount of time and will be taking damage I will choose a healing set. If I think they can get by with their dodging and my player skill I’ll look for an offensive set on them.
ISO-8 Ranks
Each ISO-8 Material will have a Star rank associated with it. The overall star rank of all your ISOs combined will determine the amount of passive stats you gain from the ISO-8 set. It is advised that you use 2 and 3 star ISOs to activate the set while you roll your 6* ISOs.
The reason it is suggested that you use 2 or 3 star ISOs instead of a 6 star is because as you level ISOs some can change stats. The only way to remove an ISO is with Crystals and can become quite expensive if you get stuck with an Energy ISO on a Physical Damage character.
Just activating an ISO set with a 2 or 3 star set of ISO-8 materials will be a nice benefit to your characters and you should look to activate one on every character of your WB killing teams as well as your strikers. For your team members that do not spend time on the field and your strikers I would look for a set that has All Attack, Critical Rate Crit Damage and Defense Penetration as these stats will help while on the bench and as a striker.
Cards
Comic Cards are one of the best places to increase the overall power level of your teams. You can greatly increase your Skill Cooldown, Attack and Defensive stats here. Next to your Alliance this will (and should) be the place that brings you close to that 50% cooldown cap.
Here’s a few resources to learn more about cards and how to acquire them:
On our subreddit wiki page you can learn the basics of Comic Cards and the values you get by increasing their ranks.
Here is a listing of all cards available in game, where to acquire them and what stats they provide us.
There are two things to pay attention to on the Comic Card cover which are the Star Rank and the Quality Rank (the number). The Star Rank is increased by combining more cards with the current card to level it up and give it a higher Star Rank which will grant it additional stat increases. The Quality Rank is the number on the cover and is completely random when the card is created. The Quality Rank only affects the Innate Stats of the card.
The first two stat values of a card are their innate stats and DO NOT change as long as that Comic Card is always chosen as the one to be upgraded. To get both innate stats the card needs to be upgraded from one star to two stars. The values of the Innate Stats are increased as the Quality Rank goes up but is completely random when the card is rolled.
Each additional upgrade after two stars will pull from the spreadsheet table (provided above) and grant a random stat (or proc) for the card. At six stars the card will grant two innate stats and six bonus stats. The values of the bonus stats granted from slots three through six will be fixed values (5.1%, 5.4%, 5.7%, 6%).
“There’s so many to choose? How do you choose?”
Below is a list of cards and their innate stats that we believe are the most powerful and you should attempt to acquire them. They are in no particular order.
| Card | Location | Innate Stat 1 | Innate Stat 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loki: Agent of Asgard #17 | Dimensional Rift: Destroyer | All Attack | Cooldown Time |
| Marvel Zombies #2 | Dimensional Rift: Vision | Dodge | Cooldown Time |
| Black Widow #20 | Dimensional Rift: Thor | All Defense | Max HP |
| Amazing Spider Man (1999) #533 | Honor Card Chest | Attack Speed | Dodge |
| Amazing Spider Man (1999) #535 | Honor Card Chest | Max HP | Attack Speed |
| Civil War (2006) #4 | Comic Card Chest (Crystals) | All Attack | Physical Defense |
| Civil War (2006) #3 | Comic Card Chest (Crystals) | Cooldown Time | Crowd Control Time |
| Thors #2 (Keown Variant) | Comic Card Chest (Crystals) | Energy Attack | Crowd Control Time |
| 1872 #1 (Shaner Variant) | Comic Card Chest (Crystals) | Physical Attack | Critical Rate |
The first five listed are all easy to acquire and can provide a nice set of starter stats while you farm up and combine for more stats and better rolls.
“This card has these stats at 4 stars but this card has these stats at 6 stars, how do you decide?”
While upgrading cards you will need to balance your current bonuses granted from the card and what you will gain or lose by upgrading. This is further offset by the random factor of stat slots three through six on the cards.
This is largely dependent on what other stats you currently have. From my cards alone, I shoot for 30% skill cooldown, 20% all attack and 15% dodge. If the tradeoff does not meet these requirements then I keep my current card setup. The reason I chose these stats is because you get 14% skill cooldown from your Alliance (for a total of 44% minimum) and will push you very close to the 50% skill cooldown cap when combined with characters that have their own innate skill cooldown on gear. Also, I’m willing to fudge the All Attack and Dodge by a percent or two depending on the tradeoff. The most important stat for me is Skill Cooldown though.
Cards can be tricky when upgrading and changing cards. If you want specific advice please post in the Daily Question Thread. This would be the best way to get a detailed breakdown and suggestions. When doing so please include a screenshot of your current cards and total card stats.
Alliances
Alliances can provide you with a rather large boost in Skill Cooldown, Dodge, Critical Rate and Critical Damage. While these values increase as your Alliance Level increases the most important Alliance Level is 24. This is the level that allows these bonuses to carry over to World Bosses.
At Alliance Level 24 these bonuses are 12% for each of the four stats mentioned earlier. At Alliance Level 29 these stats are all 14%.
Team Building
This section is primarily focused towards World Bosses.
I always see lots of questions of who you should use and what team you should use them on. The answer is it depends on who you have and where they will fit in the grand scheme of your roster. Each WB killing team is required to have 3 members. Remember, if you kill the WB, those characters will not be able to participate in another team.
What I usually look for when building a team is who is going to do the damage. If it is a single character that can carry the damage (Loki) then I will choose someone who will increase Loki’s damage through Leadership (Ronan or Energy Increase) and the third slot will be a team up bonus that will benefit the team with damage (Coulson/Red Skull).
If I build teams that have a character that cannot solo carry the damage I will look for a Leadership that will affect them all. An example of this is Star-Lord (who increases all Blast Character Energy Damage by 45%), Sister Grimm and Wasp. While Sister Grimm or Wasp can kill a WB solo when played correctly, having them both on the team will allow you to play with a little leeway and allow for mistakes. Star-Lord himself is also very useful and can assist the team with damage or a tag-out if needed. Star-Lord’s leadership increases all three characters damage.
Many characters have an All Attack leadership bonus as well. These characters are great leaders for multiple damage type teams. An example is Team Trainwreck which is both Ant-Man (physical damage) and Yellowjacket (energy damage). Team Trainwreck is also great because when you use the World Boss Co-Op Attack button it will use Ant-Mans 5 star ability and, if he is the active character, you can chain his 5 star, Co-Op, and 5 star ability again for 10+ seconds of invulnerability.
A thing to note about Leaderships is make sure to fully read them. Some only affect certain characters such as Star-Lords 45% Energy Damage increase only affects Blast characters. Ronan’s 36% increased damage and defense only affects Universal characters.
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