Marvel Avengers Alliance Tactics

[Lee Stone]

I have to say... this game has had me hooked more than Avengers Alliance.
Both are great games, but Tactics seems less monotonous because of the locations and Heroclix/Final Fantasy Tactics gameplay.

A few thoughts...

Looks like this was a victim of the "no Fantastic Four" push. Which is really sad. We finally can have four characters in a team and we can't use the FF. :-(

A lot of the abilities from Avengers Alliance ported over surprisingly well with Tactics. However, the Infiltrator's Combat Reflexes either has been changed to only counter Tacticians or something's wrong with it.

I like the ability training and skill slotting. Great way to add customization to the game and more variety.

I hope we get interactive objects, like things to throw or blow up for area damage.

Shield points take forever to gain. Especially right now

And, again, I like that we have Shield Agents to use.

Some important info:
Pay attention to the mission objective. Sometimes you only have to take out the main bad guy. And I haven't seen a difference in experience for taking them all out.
Toy with character abilities. Some things are best learned by exploring.
For instance, Black Panther has an attack that basically doubles his speed. But you wouldn't know it by reading the description.

On the Dr. Doom mission, with the servo bots and Doom doing his spellcasting, take as many long range characters you can. Then place all your heroes in the crater in the top left of the map. This limits the servobots to range attacks which are considerably less powerful. Pick them off on by one until you take them all out.

[krisis]

I love that Doom mission - I am determined to figure out a way to kill him!

Another tip: Building defense isn't about shredding the other team, it's about running down the clock. After a week of PVP I finally ran into another team of heroes, and no matter how hard I went at them there was no way to do enough damage to all of them in the allotted time - partially because they had Iron Fist healing them. It definitely changed my opinion on what teams to leave on defense in my Command Center.

[Lee Stone]

Also... a word to the wise... develop more buildings at your base. It will make you less appealing for an attack.

First- it costs 10 energy to attack each individual structure.
Second- they don't get the random award until ALL the structures are defeated.

Which makes a base with 8 buildings cost too much in both energy and time compared to a base with only two or three buildings.

Plus... if you happen upon a base that's taken a beating and take out the last building, you get the random award.

Edit: I just finished a second run through of Chapter 1. I managed to get Dr. Doom down to 900 health before I had to give in and take out the last servo guard.

[Lee Stone]

While waiting on Chapter 2, I did some research. After discovering this site that had Command Point Farming info, here is my current strategy:

If I have 30+Energy do PVP to get a Shield spin or two.
If I have less than 30 Energy, I do the first two missions of Assignment 2.

For the missions, I use Cyclops, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch and either a character needing XP or another long-range attacker.

On the mission one, take out the Tacticians first to reduce enemy attacks.

On mission two, focus all your attention on Moonstone. Scarlet Witch takes longer to reach her, so use her first move to do an Area Attack on as many AIM agents on the way. Once Cyclops and Black Panther reach Moonstone, she may get cornered into a bottleneck, which explains why you'd want another long range attacker.

PVP: as little as 30 Energy for 1 Shield Spin.
PVE: 20 Energy for 1 Command Point Spin.

[Atren]

Ok, I have played it some.

My advices: get taskmaster or captain america for accelerate. It gives you double movement for first turn and that makes a lot of missions far faster and easier. Captain America skill unfortunately is gold or lucky spin.

Dots hurt like hell from second turn, first turn is pathetic damage. It is key to defeating Modok, BP bleeds and Ironman burn for example.

Gifts wise only shield points, no exceptions. You are really starved for them for quite some time.

[Starleafgirl]

Dots hurt like hell from second turn, first turn is pathetic damage. It is key to defeating Modok, BP bleeds and Ironman burn for example.

Agreed. I've found that Sif's Ravaged plus BP's Bleeding makes MODOK an easy win.

I hear that the Energy regen rate is going to slow down at some point, so hold onto those Medium Energies.

[Lee Stone]

Agreed. I've found that Sif's Ravaged plus BP's Bleeding makes MODOK an easy win.

I hear that the Energy regen rate is going to slow down at some point, so hold onto those Medium Energies.

I'm not surprised since by the time you finish a mission, you'll have about half of the 10 energy back.

[Lee Stone]

I finally beat Modok.

Black Panther, Cyclops, Iron Man and Scarlet Witch was my team. All Level 4.

I spent the first round falling back and using guard/shield.
Then once Modok was in the area beyond the first barricade, I had Scarlet Witch use Hex Spheres. Then two strikes with Black Panther. He stayed to be target.
Cyclops then moved in for a shot then fell back out of range.
Iron Man then moved in for Fire Missiles.

Black Panther and Iron Man eventually fell but Scarlet Witch and Cyclops (who still had almost all his health) remained.

Modok was taking @160 damage from bleeding, 270 from hex and around 150-200 from fire damage.

[krisis]

I cannot believe you beat him with L4 heroes! Maybe I've just been using a bad mix. Did you wind up killing any of the AIM agents, or just MODOK himself?

Also: Does anyone else find it odd/annoying that you can win a L1 ability you already have in a mission spin? And, further, that you can't simply merge it onto your existing ability to level it up? Why would I want multiples of the same skill - especially a passive!

[Lee Stone]

I cannot believe you beat him with L4 heroes! Maybe I've just been using a bad mix. Did you wind up killing any of the AIM agents, or just MODOK himself?

Also: Does anyone else find it odd/annoying that you can win a L1 ability you already have in a mission spin? And, further, that you can't simply merge it onto your existing ability to level it up? Why would I want multiples of the same skill - especially a passive!

Just Modok.
I did get some collateral damage in with Scarlet Witch but when it was time to use Iron Man, the AIM agents were too far away.

Here's my setup:

Black Panther (Lvl 4)
Panther Fury - Lvl 2
Claw Swipe - Lvl 4
Guard - Lvl 4 (but no real benefit to leveling)
Warrior King - Lvl 1
Iso-8: EnduringX1, PreciseX1, SwiftX1, DexterousX1
(note: it sounds impressive but I didn't get to use Panther Fury as I was focusing on getting the Bleeding damage in, and he was never next to another hero after attacking so Warrior King didn't help either.)

Cyclops (Lvl 4)
Optic Blast - Lvl 4
Kinetic Combo - Lvl 4
Field Tactics - Lvl 4 (again, no real benefit to leveling)
Rapid Response - Lvl 4 (and no real benefit to leveling)
Iso-8: EnduringX1, PreciseX1, SwiftX1, HealthyX1
Cyclops would attack and move back as far as possible. The added benefit of Knockback on his attacks really helpd. Just make sure you "aim" (haha... a pun) Modok to where he won't be stopped by an obstacle.

Iron Man (Lvl 4)
Repulsor Rays - Lvl 4
Incendiary Rocket Barrage - Lvl 3
Repulsor Shield - Lvl 1
Stark Technology - Lvl 3 (no real benefit to leveling)
Iso-8: CarefulX1, ExactX1, HealthyX2

Scarlet Witch (Lvl 4)
Arcane Blast - Lvl 4
Hex Spheres - Lvl 4
Guard - Lvl 4 (no real benefit to leveling)
Disruption - Lvl 4 (no real benefit to leveling)
Iso-8: EnduringX2, PreciseX1, CarefulX1

What really helped was the Bleeding+Burning+Hex damage.
That and Scarlet Witch's Chaos Shield healed Black Panther once when he was attacked.

After Scarlet Witch got her initial attack in, I kept her at the bottom center of the screen. Cyclops would retreat to the lower-right corner after each attack.
Again, after Black Panther and Iron Man got their dot attacks in, they took turns being targets. This allowed Scarlet Witch to build up the Hex Spheres again before Modok closed in on her.

[Lee Stone]

Chapter 2 is now up.
The first mission is fighting three Kree landing parties.
I managed to (barely) beat two of them.
Going back to Chapter 1 to level up...

Here's the Patch Notes:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEW STUFF

Chapter 2 – adds 6 new assignments, containing 30 new tasks and a new Epic Boss. Completion of Chapter 1, Assignment 6 will unlock this new Chapter content!
Ronan the Accuser, Omega Sentinel and Loki are now available for unlock



STREAMLINED COMBAT

Multiple applications of a status will now trigger simultaneously rather than individually. I.E. Radioactive Man’s attack ‘Radiation Poisoning’ is applied to all combatants at once now rather than one combatant at a time.
Damage over time and buff statuses, like bleeds and Hulk ups, now stack damage rather than showing each individual damage affect separately. I.E. someone that is affected by 3 bleeds will see a single cumulative number appear rather than 3 smaller numbers.



MISC CHANGES

Adjusted the Hero XP tables above level 5 - heroes will now level a bit faster
Adjusted rewards and difficulty for Chapter 1
Remove buffs has been renamed to “Scour”, with a duration of 2 rounds.
Remove debuffs has been renamed to “Clarify”, with a duration of 2 rounds.
Dark Void now does damage every turn for three turns, instead of damage over time.
Guard actions now only remove a single debuff.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents’ AI will be less likely to heal unharmed allies.



BUG FIXES

Fixed a few bugs that may have been causing some users to get a crash launching the game
Fixed a bug with the Balefire Raptor that was causing the game to crash when it used the “Melted Armor” ability
Epic Boss 1 will now launch correctly for all players - Early adopters that defeated M.O.D.O.K. and then were not able to face him again will now be able to
Fixed a bug that reset facility upgrade timers if the building was attacked during the upgrade - Long upgrades there we being restarted due to PvP attacks will now be a thing of the past
Fixed some issues related to class bonuses not working under certain conditions
Extended the PvP combat timer from 7 minutes to 12 minutes
Fixed an error that prevented the radar button in the Battle Log from taking the player to the location of the attacker
Fixed a bug with Black Panther’s Guard ability that caused him to lock up in combat if the guard higher than 7th level
Fixed a bug with She Hulk’s Defense Lawyer ability that caused it to proc when enemies were hit around her
Dr. Doom’s “Shocking Armor” no longer stacks.
Captain Marvel’s Tactical Command no longer applies Target Focus to allies.
She-Hulk’s “Defense Lawyer” passive no longer protects enemies from area attacks.
Infiltrators should no longer counter-attack random tacticians at random times.
The Light Speed status no longer stacks, and is removed correctly on use.
Black widow can now use “Flying Kick” on an adjacent target.



Known Issues:

Omega Sentinel’s “Weapon of Choice” and “Hologram Array” may have been mistakenly awarded before the release of Chapter 2. They currently are not working as intended, and have been removed from the reward tables. We do not want to take them away from players who may have won them already, and fully intend to make them function properly in a future patch.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Something else I noticed is that now the Levels of both the enemies and their abilities are displayed. Could be useful info.
For instance, the Krees you fight in the first mission of Chapter 2 are all Lvl 7 and have skills at Lvl 7.

[krisis]

Love the big fixes and levels being displayed, and really enjoyed the increased difficulty of Chapter 2.

Extending the PVP timer is crap. Totally demotivating. The whole fun of running a heavy team of heroes with a healing agent was that you might run down the clock. That's almost totally eliminated now.

[Lee Stone]

I didn't even realize there was a timer until I read someone complaining about it.
I usually attack abandoned bases and each building takes just one turn on those.

[hulahulk]

Some good fixes there in the Patch Notes.

I'm 2 for 2 against Modok. I'll start Chapter 2 tonight. Looking forward (sort of) to the tougher fights.

[Lee Stone]

Something else I've learned:
Where you place your heroes on the Quinjet effects their starting position on the PVP maps.

The ones on the right side of the Quinjet are placed further back in the Quinjet Hangar map and they are placed on the right side of the Training Center map.
Useful to know if you have a character (like Scarlet Witch) who would benefit from being on one side or the other.