Payday is a monthly event that will get you a hefty injection of badly needed gold. It comes around every 3rd friday of the month. The requirements are 5 characters with Mercenary tag and star rank 1-7 depending on the tier of the event.
Options are Bullseye, Deadpool, Killmonger, Korath the Pursuer, Mercenary Lieutenant, Mercenary Riot Guard, Mercenary Sniper, Mercenary Soldier and Taskmaster.
Please not that while this brings in a lot of money, it is only once a month and averaged out over a month, there are better options. Also the whole guide to endgame uses few characters so you won’t need that much gold anyway. This is why you should not prioritize this guide over others or the characters in it.
Team
Deadpool and Killmonger are the only ones needed elsewhere so we will include them for this event. Well, Deadpool still isn’t but we have some information from the game that the X-Force will be required to unlock Otto Octavius.
Taskmaster, Bullseye, Mercenary Lieutetnant and Riot Guard (with Killmonger) are the best choice for a war defense team but there are 4 and we need 3. Taskmaster is the team leader so I hate to exclude him but he is only one not farm-able.
Availability
Mercenary Riot Guard is available in the Blitz store for 400 credits
Bullseye is available in 2 campaign nodes. Heroes 2-6 and Villains 1-3 so you wont have any problems farming him.
Mercenary Lieutenant is available only in Villains 3-3 and may be the slowest grind of all.
Deadpool is available in the Arena store. This is a problem as using this guide you will have so many priorities over Deadpool at least initially. So keep farming him just enough to keep up with the rest of your Mercenaries. Maybe i will change this once Dr. Octopus is available and X-Force is farmable.
Killmonger is a Raid store character so use every chance to buy him.
If you are interested in getting Ultron in DD2, then read on as DD1 is the best way to get the gear required to meet the requirements for DD2.
Dark Dimension is a single player raid type of game mode. Enemies there have a huge ammount of health and not too high of a damage output as they do in DD2 and DD3.
DD1 requires 5 6-star characters. So we want them to be easily farm-able and to start straight away. We want them to have a ton of sustain. We also want a team that can clear debuffs on allies and place them on enemies. And, since there is no timer, damage is less important.
Team
I see AIM as a perfect candidate for this. They provide the sustain, the 3 minions are cheap to get the abilities up. They are one of the easiest teams to farm to 6 stars. If you followed the previous guides, you should be able to farm them all.
The exception here is Graviton so if you are not able to farm him due to lack of war credits or if you want to invest in other characters in war store, replace him with one of the characters you are building up for the Phoenix or Black Bolt events.
This includes Hela, Ronan, Mordo, Loki or Nobu. Hela will not be available to farm at the time you start DD1 so I will exclude her. Nobu is the worst of the lot. Loki might be a bit late of farm to consider him (started farming him on day 68).
So the choice comes down to Ronan or Mordo. Either one will do that you are able to get to 6-stars faster. Mordo is a more consistent farm than Ronan so I guess he will be the choice of the majority.
If you don’t like the AIM team or if you want to use resources on the least amount of characters then select the team you are building for Phoenix or Black Bolt, Asgardians or mystic villain controllers or a combination of both. So her is the other team I would choose for this adventure based on their availability.
or depending on the farming progress.
This means that you will be starting DD1 and thus DD2 much later than with the AIM option due to availability of Loki and Sif, randomness of Ronan and Thor and Sif. Also this team doesn’t have that much sustain and may make DD1 progress slower.
I have been farming all of the characters as soon as I could with the exception of arena where i went for the Researcher and just unlocked Heimdal and Mordo. Today, 71 days in game, I have a difference of 450 shards between the 2 teams where AIM has 1100 and 5 characters with most shards in the other team have 650. In total 2550 shards are needed so I guess with aim it will take around 5 months of the game start to get to DD1 and with the other team around 8 months. You may be a bit closer to unlocking Phoenix or Black Bolt that way but not by 3 months.
Nodes
So we have the team and now we have to clear the nodes. I will not write about it here as many have done it in great detail so i will just place a link to one such file with a kill order to help you pass this as painlessly as possible. Full credits and thanks for the file go to Kermht on reddit.
Resources
So you have cleared the content, gotten a lot of orange gear, gold and mega orbs. What to do with it? Well you won’t be taking them to the after life, that’s for sure but it is very important to know what, where and when to use it.
Mega orbs are having their content updated to contain less legacy and more premium characters. Also there are sometimes orb opening events that give rewards for opening orbs and mega orbs provide more points than most of other orbs. So postpone using these orbs until such an event comes or until its content gets updated to contain the character you really need. And you only really need a character if it will give you benefits in arena rank, in raid progress and war progress.
Gold orbs you just wont be able to save, but please use them to level up the essential characters FIRST. These characters are the ones you will be taking to gear t13 and 14 for DD2 and DD3. To name them Phoenix, Min-erva, Ebony Maw. These 3 are going to remain the top choice for this game mode due to the percentage based attacks.
Symbiote Spider-man, Hela and then Carnage come in second but there may be better characters introduced in the future so not a priority right now. Invest in them only once you are ready to start DD2 or DD3.
The only other place I would use money from the gold orbs is the arena team. Being top of the arena is very important in this game because of the cores provided.
Orange gear just like gold. Use it only on characters you plan on taking to DD2 and 3 and arena team and lastly Ultimus VII team. This is tricky as DD3 is months away and you may need the gear sooner for other things. But trust me, even though mini unique gear parts are hard to obtain, you will be constrained with catalysts and other parts as well even though you may now have a couple of hundred or thousand to spare.
Comments
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Ebony Maw is the newest legendary character. He is a bit controversial as he is the first character that requires another legendary (Black Bolt) to obtain. Maw is also the one that completes the Black Order team to give the final 3 stones to Thanos for the empowered mode. This is a great offensive team and one could argue an arena meta or at least they were advertised as such.
But we want more as we want to get to the end-game as soon as possible wasting least resources. And Ebony Maw is more as he is one of the recommended characters for DD2 and 3 because of his percentage based attack that heals allies. He is one of 3 characters that can do this so lets take a look at how to obtain him.
Requirements
Requirements are Black Bolt plus 4 other Inhumans. We can choose from Crystal, Karnak, Ms. Marvel, Yo-yo and Quake.
Yo-Yo is the hardest one of the bunch to farm as she is can be only obtained in premium and mega orbs. I will exclude her but if you can get her to 5 stars, she will make a huge difference in power levels needed clear the event.
Please read this post to see how to unlock Black Bolt. And this one about Phoenix which is a bit more detailed as the 2 are just different in star ranks of the same characters.
With these guides we set ourselves up for Karnak as well who is found in the Nexus 8-6 campaign and will need Kree, Guardian or Asgardian characters to 3-star the node. This should be no problem as we got our Asgardians up for the Black Bolt event and they are the better of the 3 teams so it is an easy choice.
Crystal and Quake are Arena store farms so keep fighting in the Arena to get more credits.
Ms. Marvel is found at Mystic 2-6 campaign. This should be no problem as we previously passed this node to get to Loki node. I was able to clear is with an 85K team without much troubles.
And that is it! Just keep farming and wait for the event.
This is an event used to get Black Bolt shards. This is a very important legendary character as he has a unique mechanic that doesn’t allow characters to be resurrected if killed by Black Bolt making him a great counter against teams Hydra. Black Bolt is a requirement to get Ebony Maw and is a beast when it comes to damage dealing.
I have chosen this event to be next on the priority list right after Phoenix Rising as we are mostly set up to get this character. This is also the reason why this post is very short. Be sure to read that guide first as I don’t go over the things that are the same.
Two of the characters we need for Black Bolt should already be at 6 stars. Hela and Loki. So now we just need to get Heimdal, Thor and Sif to at least 5 stars. They might not be the easiest farms but they should be available.
If you followed the Second Team(s) guide then you should already be set with gear. The lowest reported power to unlock Black Bolt is 91K. To 6-star you will need at least 160K power team and for 7 stars at least 283K Asgardian team.
For those that want Black Bolt before Phoenix
This route is perfectly OK as well and is very similar to the one for Phoenix as it revolves around the character that is hardest to farm, Hela. The difference being that in Phoenix guide you had to unlock Asgardians and 6-star villain mystic controllers.
For the Black Bolt’s event you will need to hard farm the Asgardians and just unlock (and gear up) villain mystics. Because you will still need to get Phoenix, I suggest you choose the ones that are also controllers. Thor will need to be farmed additionally in the raid store/orbs because welcome calendar will not provide a sufficient number of shards.
Farming steps
I know it is a bit complicated so let me put it in steps.
Unlock Thor from welcome calendar
Unlock Ronan from Raid store
Farm Thor in Raid store to 5 stars
Unlock Heimdal in the Arena store
Unlock Yondu from Heroes 1-9
Unlock AIM Assaulter from Heroes 5-3
Unlock AIM Security from Heroes 5-3
Unlock Mordo from Arena store
Unlock Graviton from War store or AIM Monstrosity from Blitz store
Have you ever heard of a saying “I am not rich because I have a lot but because I need little”? This one applies 100% for new players of MSF. So please read the other guides to minimize the amount of characters you invest in to avoid spreading your resources to thin on awesome characters that will get you nowhere.
Good resource management will get you ahead faster. Knowing which characters to invest in, when and when to stop is the most important to know. Next most important thing is knowing the value of those resources so you could focus on obtaining them.
Resources are obtained in different game parts and events that require different characters. These events have different amounts of rewards. This guide will teach you which events are more worth the investment.
You gather the resources to progress your characters but not all characters are made equal and you may want to invest in some more while others get left behind.
One more thing to keep in mind is that while there are many bad paths you can take in the game, there is no single best path. The path chosen here is to use the minimum amount of resources for the characters that will be most useful even at later stages of the game.
General rules of resource management in MSF
Plan ahead – it is important to know when certain events happen and what their requirements are so you can restrain from spending resources needed for the event on things that are of less importance.
Best place for checking out characters is your roster. But you may get some more information on these links as well
Be picky – invest most in characters that have most use long-term. On all the others, only essential to get the task at hand done. If you have doubt on which characters to use first, please check this guide.
Focus – focus on one team until you complete all the green gear and abilities
Vertical progress – continue progressing as few teams (characters) as possible to desired potential with blue and purple.
Horizontal progress – once you have completed green materials on your first team, move on and add them to your second team being mindful on your gold
Repeat – you will need many teams to be successful.
Restrain – restrain yourself from using all your resources all at once or only on one team. If you are a starter and have barely reached blue gear, save purple gear orbs for a time when you need them. There could be an orb opening event. Also, don’t over-invest in a team you are in love with so you could save gear that may be used more efficiently elsewhere. Defenders are a prime example of this. I have seen Defenders as main teams for some people with 500k strength that loose out to teams of 300k power.
Play! – playing various content of this game will get you the most rewards to progress your characters. If I would choose the priorities of what to do the it is spending campaign energy, challenges, arena, raid and blitz (though this one may shift based on the character)
Resources
Character Shards
These are most important in early and mid game all the way up until you have unlocked every character needed to unlock game content like campaign, challenges, monthly events etc. After that they loose on the importance.
How to get
Campaign nodes you can get anywhere between 0 and 10 (on events x2) shards for 60-100 energy depending on node requirement. I found this to be an average of 2.5 shards. Doing this you also get gold and gear materials both of which are very important. You get 1 energy every 5 minutes or a maximum of 288 throughout the day. You can also collect 240 energy every day from daily tasks. And if you buy for 50 power cores you can get an additional 480 energy. That comes to a more than 1000 energy.
For one that amount of energy you can get about 25-40 shards on average plus 85k-215k gold. Daily!
Orbs are really important in the early game as in many cases they will instantly unlock a character you need for a challenge or progress in the campaign. Orbs can be obtained in challenges, blitz, raids, campaign. Be sure to play all parts of the game not to miss out on any.
Legendary events are something a new player will not experience soon but should be very mindful of them when selecting characters. Be sure to select characters that will unlock more game content.
Blitz provides character shards through milestones and rewards twice a week. So be sure to play as much as possible when a character you want is featured. Blitz also provides premium and red orbs as well as red star orbs once a week. Initially premium orbs will be most important so focus on them as well as characters you want. This is a great way to get gold, blitz orbs and credits for blitz store.
Stores. There are 4 main stores where you can get characters. Blitz, Raid, Arena and War store. Until level 50 you don’t need to worry about war store. Blitz store is least currency constricted and character shards are cheap so you will get your characters fastest there. Raid store offers good deals for gear but if you are looking for characters, go for the orbs first. Early in the game this one will be most constricted as raids don’t provide that many orbs and there are no greek raids. Arena store is the most constricted and will remain so depending on your arena success. Many great characters can be unlocked there.
What characters to get first
First few days you won’t have a lot of choice and you will progress what heroes and villains you have just to make progress in the campaigns. Next go for the team that is cheap and easy to farm that will also serve you in the long run. Please check the guide here.
Gold
This is the worst bottleneck in the game as you will always be constrained with this. One character needs 5.5 million gold just to level to 75, 1 million to rank up to 7 stars and, there is the ability cost and gear cost which can amount to 2 million. Meaning you would need 8.5 million per character to fully upgrade or 42.5 million for a team. And that is without buying gear in the store (which is not worth it).
How to get
Challenges
Challenges are a very regular way of gaining resources. The table below shows daily gold contribution per day per tier
Tier
k gold
Gold orb fragments
Average daily gold contribution (k)
1
22
115
41,22
2
36,8
130
61,94
3
41,6
140
69,24
4
46,4
150
76,53
5
51,2
160
83,83
6
56
175
91,69
7
60,8
190
99,55
8
65,6
205
107,41
9
70,4
220
115,26
10
78
240
127,29
11
88
265
142,96
12
100
300
162,32
Blitz
Blitz rewards are hard to determine as new players get lower rewards and the amount depends on how active you are and how many teams you have but the maximum you can get is 242k gold per week or about 35k per day for new players but that maximum is highly unlikely and will most probably be around 15 k per day. This will steadily increase over the course of time. Later you will have no problem clearing all milestones and that will give you about 74k daily.
There are also blitz orbs which are an awesome value for the new player. each one gives about 3500 gold plus 5 character shards. If you complete the blitz milestones you can get 1,7 orbs every 3 days (for a new player) and 1700 blitz credits which, if you choose to open up orbs with, will give you in total of 7000 gold every day on average if you complete all the milestones.
Once you are no longer a new player, the milestones will be much higher and so will be the rewards.
Campaign
This is the best place to get gold throughout the game. Along with the gear materials and character shards you can get anywhere between 85-215k gold from all the energy you can get daily and the one you buy with cores.
Payday
Monthly event that requires 5 mercenaries with appropriate star rank per tier.
Tier
Gold
Gold orbs
Daily contribution
1
225
7,5
2
450
15
3
750
25
4
1050
4
58
5
1400
5
74
6
1800
6
95
7
2400
7
121
Raid
Raids provide an small amount of gold once you clear a node. The amount depends on the amount of nodes you are able to clear and the raid tier.
Ultimus
Gold / node
Max gold daily
1
500
3000
2
1000
13000
3
1250
17500
4
1500
19500
5
2000
30000
6
4500
58500
7
6000
78000
Summary
In order to obtain gold, your priorities should be campaign, challenges, blitz, payday and then raids.
Ability materials
Abilities really unlock the fun bits in your characters. Green and blue you will probably have excess of later in the game. Until you do, stick to general principles on how to manage them. Purple will be constrained and orange you will want to save for very very special characters and abilities.
How to get
Challenges
Just like for all other materials you will ever need, challenges are a very regular way of gaining resources. The table below shows daily ability materials per day
Tier
Green
Blue
Purple
Orange
1
12,9
2
19,3
3
19,3
3,9
4
19,3
6,5
5
19,3
9
6
19,3
10,3
3,9
7
19,3
11,6
9
8
19,3
12,9
15,4
9
16,7
19,3
10
16,7
32,1
3,9
11
18
32,1
3,9
12
19,3
32,1
3,9
Block Party
This is another event that comes every month and requires 5 characters with City and Hero traits.
Tier
Green
Blue
Purple
Orange
1
1,5
2
2
1,5
3
4
4,5
4
6
4,5
5
7,5
6
10,5
7
13,5
5
Ultimus raids
Tier
Green
Blue
Purple
Orange
1
18-33
2
24-94
6-31
3
60-160
10-45
4
40
20-55
0-30
5
20-95
10-65
6
40-145
20-140
7
50-230
0-10
Campaign
Campaigns are only good for green ability materials and for blue ones in later game when you no longer need them. You can get about 50 daily just by farming characters.
Summary
Your priorities depend on the material you are aiming for.
Orange materials are probably be best in Block party event and least challenging to achieve. Then challenges and lastly raids as they require some of the hardest characters to obtain.
For purple and blue the best are raids, challenges and lastly Block Party event.
For green ones you should get what you need from using energy in campaigns.
What to invest in
This depends on the team but with ability materials you should not be afraid to invest green or blue materials following general rules as you will not be sorry using them in the long run. Purple materials will be far behind your unlocked characters needing them so choose only abilities that provide most to the team, that unlock most useful synergies and on the teams you plan on using long-term.
For starter players please read the post about your first team. For others, i will be making investment guides on a team basis.
Gear materials
Gear boosts your character’s stats and it is required for Dark dimension 2 and 3. Bio, Mutant, Tech Mystic and Skill all require different types of materials. Catalysts use varies between characters and only basic catalysts are required by all characters.
Priority is to select the best team but where possible avoid teams members with same material type so dont starve yourself of one type of materials while having a lot of others that you won’t be using. Shield minions are a good example where you have many skill characters and it makes sense to replace trooper with a bio character to (i.e. Captain America) to release the pressure from obtaining skill gear materials.
How to get
Campaigns
Best way to gather gear is the campaign, so make sure you progress in campaigns so you have more selection. Just By farming character shards from the energy you get and buy with cores you can get up to 75 gear materials depending on your luck. This is tricky though as you may not always get the materials you need but with all the other benefits character farming in campaign provides, this is an easy choice. You can also choose to farm materials instead of character shards which can also be a rewarding option.
Catalyst challenges
In this challenge you only get catalyst which are a kind of universal materials that are needed on all characters. For a new player this may be a bottleneck unless you are really focused on 1-2 teams.
Tier
Improved Basic Catalyst
Improved Catalyst
Advanced Basic Catalyst
Advanced Catalyst
Superior Basic Catalyst
Superior Catalyst
1
2
2
3
1
3
4
2
4
5
3
2
1
5
7
5
3
3
6
7
5
5
5
7
6
8
8
6
12
1
9
6
12
3
4
10
6
12
6
12
Relic Hunt
Much like the catalyst challenge but this only provides basic catalysts. Don’t invest in Hand too much because of this event because you will have sufficient amount of basic catalysts in the mid and late game.
Dark Dimension (DD)
In DD you get orange gear materials and gear. This is end-game content that requires either 5 6-star characters, 5 Tier 13 geared characters and 5 tier 14 geared characters depending on the level of DD. This is why this guide doesn’t cover it in detail For those of you that are at that stage now, do not use the gear straight away on your best team! Rather you may want to choose characters that will serve you in DD3, Ultimus 7 and arena.
Milestone Orbs
With the available energy daily you should be able to clear Save the World milestones and High Roller milestones up to 6 or 7 which should provide you with one blue and one origin specific purple gear orb. Open the blue ones as you will probably need them anyway and keep the purple ones until you need them or until there is an orb opening event.
Raid Store
When it comes for purple gear this store is king of value, but not so much for blue gear. Therefore a new player may want to spend raid credits on character orbs or shards and buy only the rarest purple items required by the team you are focusing on.
War store
As this store becomes available only once you reach level 50 and you only get credits for it once your alliance starts wars, I will not recommend newer players getting materials there. Also, this store has some character shards that are required to unlock game content, you will want to spend your credits on those and some certain gear tier 14 specific gear materials.
Main Store
While a good selection of materials is always available, it is costly and you want to keep spending in this store to a minimum.
Raids
Raids provide different gear orb fragments depending on the raid you are doing. Their amount depends on your alliance’s success and your personal contribution. I have calculated this to a minimum amount of materials you get from opening an orb if you do a raid daily.
ULTIMUS
BLUE
PURPLE
ORANGE
1
4-5
2
6-8
3
8-14
4
10,5-23,5
2-4,5
5
12-29,5
4-9,5
6
30-40
9,5-18
7
18-24
3,5-35
Daily tasks
If you fight in raids 2 times, you can get a daily blue gear orb which will get you most often 11 blue materials.
Summary
Campaigns and raids. Challenges for catalysts and Relic hunt if you have a Hand team.
Red stars
Red stars are a the single best way of progressing your characters beyond gold stars and provide a percentage increase to a character’s stats. These are not as important in the early game so I would just tell you to focus and premium orb blitz and leave red orbs blitz for when you have sufficient characters to clear all premium milestones and then do red star blitz.
You can also get promotion credits from daily tasks by donating in guild once the feature is unlocked at level 50. Using them you can promote 1 character from 3 red stars in 15 days, 4 in 65 days and 5 in 7 months. Promotion credits are sold in a special store. Don’t buy 1 or 2 stars unless absolutely necessary as you will get them (or even higher) soon anyway from orbs. Best candidates for red stars are the ones that have an ability based on their base stats. And the ones you use.
The only other place where you can get these is the monthly event that requires Wakandans which are obtained only later in the game. please read the Chaos Theory guide to find out how to progress fastest in this event.
IMORTANT – having more red stars than gold stars will provide NO benefit!
Energy
As stated earlier energy is very important and will be used to get characters, gold, gear and ability materials but can only be bought with cores, so keep getting better in arena and do dailies. Unless you are a top arena player I recommend buying only 4 energy refills daily for 200 power cores. You will recover the cost throughout the milestones and daily tasks. Save the rest for special offers and events.
Power Cores
They are a form of currency in the game that will help you get energy, character shards, materials and many other things. Be very mindful on how you spend them as they are not easy to come by. You mostly get them by doing arena, daily tasks and milestones. Best use for this is buying energy. Do not use this to buy premium orbs ability materials in the game store.
Store currency
I have described the stores in other sections and the currency you can obtain by playing their respective game content. Blitz for blitz store, raid for arena store, arena for arena store and alliance war for war store.
Comments
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Red stars are a very important way of progressing your characters. Various red star ranks provide different percentage bonuses to all your character’s base stats. 5, 10, 20, 35, 50, 60 and 75 percent for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 red stars respectively.
IMPORTANT: Having and a red star rank without having an equivalent of yellow stars will provide no bonus.
Chaos Theory is a monthly event that provides red star promotion credits. It is there every first Friday of the month. Using these credits you can promote red stars on a selected character in a predictive manner by buying them in the store unlike red star orbs where you get a chance to get different star ranks on a random character. Chaos Theory IV: requires 5 characters with Wakandan tag at 4 starsChaos Theory IV: requires 5 characters with Wakandan tag at 4 stars
This maps shows the shortest path to unlock all characters needed for this event for a new player.
This is made based on my own experience as a new free-to-play player and depending on the purchases you have made and the luck you may have had with certain character shards, this will probably be different for you.
Requirements and rewards
Chaos Theory I:
requires 4characters with Wakandan tag
2 Silver Promotion Credits per victory
First Time Only: 20 Silver Promotion Credits
Chaos Theory II:
requires 4 characters with Wakandan tag at 2 stars
2 Silver Promotion Credits per victory
First Time only: 20 Silver Promotion Credits
Chaos Theory III:
requires 4 characters with Wakandan tag at 3 stars
3 Silver Promotion Credits per victory
First Time only: 20 Silver Promotion Credits
Chaos Theory IV:
requires 5 characters with Wakandan tag at 4 stars
5 Silver and 1 Gold Promotion Credits per victory
First Time Only: 20 Silver and 10 Gold Promotion Credits
Chaos Theory V:
requires 5 characters with Wakandan tag at 5 stars
9 Silver and 2 Gold Promotion Credits per victory
First Time Only: 25 Silver and 20 Gold Promotion Credits
Chaos Theory VI:
requires 5 characters with Wakandan tag at 6 stars
12 Silver and 4 Gold Promotion Credits per victory
First Time Only: 30 Silver and 30 Gold Promotion Credits
Chaos Theory VII:
requires 5 characters with Wakandan tag at 7 stars
18 Silver and 7 Gold Promotion Credits per victory
First Time Only: 75 Silver and 40 Gold Promotion Credits
Path
The requirements are clear that only 5 characters are available to get you through this event. Black Panther, Killmonger, M’baku, Okoye and the legendary Shuri. Being a legendary character that is only available when her event comes, she will probably not be available to newer players and to progress to tier 3 of the Chaos theory event you don’t need her so go for the other 4 characters.
To get to tier 4 of Chaos Theory you will need Suri and to unlock her you will need 5 Spider-verse characters at 5 stars. And the fastest and least intensive path is using the 3 characters from the blitz store as they require currency that will be the first one to stop being a bottleneck. These are Miles Morales, Rhino and Spiderman. Farm Shocker and Green Goblin in the campaign nodes.
Some may argue that it is better to go for Sinister Six. Yes, you should if you want to go for Invisible Woman. But note that this is not the shortest path as it requires arena currency to farm Vulture and you will need those for M’Baku plus other, more valuable characters can be obtained in the arena store. The same situation is with Mysterio in the raid store. You will want to spend those on Killmonger. However, if you have been opening raid orbs and you had good luck on getting Mysterio shards, then go for it.
I suggest avoiding Carnage completely unless you have been really luck with his shards in basic, premium and mega orbs as he is a war store character and it is hard to get this currency. Carnage is a great character when combined with Symbiote Spider-man which is a milestone event and really hard to unlock and rank up. This sums up why they are not a good choice if you want to do get through this event fast.
Venom is a good character and in my opinion better than either Miles Morales or Spider-man but he is not on the easiest node to farm. Once you get to his node and the difference in rank is not too big, you may want to make the switch. Venom may also be used to replace any character that you need for Shuri that you are having bad luck with by opening orbs.
Once you have these characters at 5 stars you can unlock Shuri. She was reported to be unlocked with a team of 60k power rating, 6-stared with as low as 86k and 7-stared with 108k. This should not be that difficult as only blue gear was used.
NOTE: These power levels show lowest reported teams that were able to rank Shuri and you may need a bit more but there is no need to over-invest in any of these characters as only sinister six is needed to unlock invisible woman and she can be unlocked at even lower power levels.
At this moment i have no numbers on what power level Wakandans is needed to 3 star the events put as soon as i have them i will update the article.
Keep ranking up these characters and you will surely progress in Chaos Theory event. And that is it! I hope you found this article useful. And as always, I appreciate your comments so please leave them down below.
And a word of warning before the end. This game adds many new characters frequently and they tend to be more powerful. I know you must be tempted to get your Phoenix to 7 red stars but do take a moment and consider other characters before you spend your promotion credits. Take into consideration what characters are available at that moment and hold on to the credits. I invested mine into phoenix and don’t regret it but after then Mr. Sinister has become farmable and also Black Order was introduced. So take your time, gather and try out all the available characters before investing.
A good preparation is half the work. With this detailed guide you will set yourself up for both Phoenix, Black Bolt and Ebony Maw. So read on to prepare. After this one, it just gets easier.
Phoenix is one of the best characters in the game. She is a must for arena, war offense, tougher nodes in raids and Dark Dimensions. Getting this character earlier than your competitors will make you so much more ahead of them.
Phoenix is an end-game character and it will take months to prepare for her event but by following this guide you will unlock some of the best characters in the game and also get closer to unlocking other legendary characters and game content. You will also have the characters to position yourself better in the arena and to progress in raids faster alliance team mates.
So don’t postpone getting Phoenix and read through this guide to find out how to efficiently prepare for this event.
Phoenix Requirements
To get Phoenix you will need characters with Mystic, Villain and Controller tag. There are only 6 characters that meet the requirements. Mordo, Loki, Hela, Ronan, Nobu and Hand Assassin. We will drop Hand Assassin as it is the worst character and has hardly any use elsewhere in the game.
The lowest reported team power required to unlock Phoenix is about 85K and is below what we will need to get the other characters needed for this event so lets see what is needed to get these villain mystic controller characters.
What i have come to realize is that getting Phoenix is all about getting Hela. If you have a way to farm Hela, you probably have a way to farm every other character needed to unlock Phoenix so this guide will mostly consist of how to farm Hela.
Hela
Hela is probably the most complicated character to get because you need to clear villains chapter 7 missions 1, 2 and 3 which require Hydra, AIM or Sinister Six characters. Then To get to Hela you will need Mystic Villain characters to get to her node .
I have chosen AIM because I plan on taking them to Dark Dimension I and I think Scientist Supreme is an end game character available very early on and very useful in Ultimus 7.
Hydra is not a good choice because it is not really needed elsewhere but if you have Red Skull, they will probably 3-star these missions with least power (though only one star is enough).
Sinister 6 is also a good choice if you plan on going for Shuri and Invisible Woman. I don’t think they are a good choice for Dark Dimension I and they are a mediocre team with hardly any use after these 2 legendary characters are unlocked making me stick with AIM.
Feel free to mix and match these 3 teams but you may need a lot more investment to 3-star so I advise against it.
AIM
I have chosen Scientist Supreme, Assaulter, Security, Researcher and Graviton. They may not be the easiest to farm but this is the best composition that will provide best sustain and will be a better war team and Dark Dimension I team. However if you find Graviton to be too hard of a farm then replace him with Monstrosity but this is a worse investment.
To get Scientist Supreme you will need characters with cosmic tag as she is available at Cosmic 2-9. You will be developing Hela and Loki for Phoenix, so a natural fit here are Thor, Heimdal and Sif. With these characters you will need as low as 50K up to 65K power team to 3-star the mission.
If you had luck with orbs and unlocked Hela or Loki early on, feel free to use them as they will make your life easier in many modes early on. Alternatively replace Heimdal with Mordo as they are both arena store unlocks and Mordo will be more useful in this guide. But you won’t regret unlocking either.
AIM Assaulter and AIM Security will require both heroes and villains team of power 40K power so you can unlock these very early on. in Their respective nodes in Heroes 5-3 and Villains 5-3.
Graviton is a tough character to unlock as he requires you to be in a guild of at least level 20 and you need to be level 55 to participate in war. Then he is available through war store and this is a very hard currency to get. So if you feel like this is not for you, choose AIM Monstrosity which is available in blitz store and is much easier to unlock.
AIM Researcher is a very cheap unlock at the arena store so make sure to do this right after Heimdal or Mordo.
And back to Hela…
Once node 7-3 is cleared you will need to clear 7-4, 7-5 and 3 star 7-6. To do this you need characters with villain and mystic tag which is convenient as we can use the characters we are preparing for Phoenix. This only requires unlocking these characters so make sure to do this first.
Mordo is vital in this node for his blinds, heal blocks and stun. As mentioned, he can be used to get Scientist Supreme and can be used in villains, mystic and cosmic campaigns.
Ronan can be used in the same campaigns as mordo and as he is required for Phoenix, this is a no-brainer.
Nobu can be used here as he is required for Phoenix and if you have no other choices. Don’t feel bad for investing a bit in him as he will be useful in Relic Hunt as well.
Hela may not be available for you to farm but if you have unlocked her, she will help by spreading blinds and other negative effects making this node so much easier.
Loki is a better choice than Nobu as he can hide your team and force the enemy to attack the duplicates he creates but if you cant farm him you will rely on the luck of the orbs. To farm Hela you only need to unlock him but you should be able to farm him if you want to get Phoenix.
He is farmable on node 3-6 of the mystic campaign and will require a powerful team to 3-star at around 150-200K. Beautiful thing about it is that you can use any of the characters required for Hela or Phoenix including Asgardians you used to get Scientist Supreme.
Juggernaut is the only farmable tank up to this point in game usable for this mission. He is also required to unlock Magneto and they are a very good team together. He is a bit steep to unlock in the Arena store at 100 shards.
Thanos will probably not be farmable (Nexus 8-9) for you at this point but if you managed to unlock him through lucky orb pulls, you should use him.
Yondu is not the best choice pretty much like Nobu but in absence of other characters feel free to use him. He has use in mystic, cosmic and villains campaigns as well as Space Ace event to get Star Lord.
And that is it, by getting characters you need for 3-staring Hela’s node, you get characters to get Loki. If you have the characters to get Loki, you have characters needed to get Nobu.
Step by step
I know it is a bit complicated so let me put it in steps.
Unlock Thor from welcome calendar
Unlock Yondu from Heroes 1-9
Unlock AIM Assaulter from Heroes 5-3
Unlock AIM Security from Heroes 5-3
Unlock Mordo from Arena store
Unlock Sif from War store
Farm Ronan from Raid store to 6 stars
Unlock Scientist Supreme from Cosmic 2-9
Unlock Graviton from War store or AIM Monstrosity from Blitz store
Unlock AIM Scientist from Arena Store
Farm Nobu from Villains 6-3 to 6 stars
Farm Loki from Mystic 3-6 to 6 stars
Farm Hela from Villains 7-6 to 6 stars
Farm Mordo to from Arena store to 6 stars
Wait for Phoenix event
By day 50 of playing I was able to unlock all of these characters except Loki, Graviton and Nobu. Hela was a lucky pull.
Here is the complete picture with connections even though there is so much re-usability that they clutter the image.
Summary
This guide did not only prepare you for the Phoenix event but made you set up a very viable end-game teams like AIM and Asgardians. These two teams will make you shine in Arena, Raids and you will be set up for Dark Dimension I and a little more of work II and III. And if you chose to opt for Sinister Six you strong foundation for 2 other very useful legendary heroes.
Comments
Please leave a comment, not only if you like this guide and you found it helpful but if you had any suggestions, requests and anything else to say.
So you have followed our guide for the first teams and you 3-stared Heroes and Villains 5-3, you have unlocked Heimdal, Sif and Ronan and you are ready to go for Cosmic 2-9.
Things get a bit more complicated so i had to change the way teams are represented and I start from the first team and suggest replacements in steps
We started with the following team and here are the suggested replacements.
Character
Replacement
Availability
Stars
Thor
Captain America
Ronan
Raid Store/Orbs
Unlock, 6-star
SHIELD Medic
SHIELD Security
Sif
War Store
Unlock
SHIELD Assault
Heimdal
Arena Store
Unlock
With these replacements we are ready to get Scientist Supreme and can focus on unlocking Mordo.
Character
Replacement
Availability
Stars
Thor
Ronan
SHIELD Medic
Scientist Supreme
Cosmic 2-9
Unlock, 6-star
Sif
Heimdal
Now you have your Arena and Raid team
For the mystic campaign you will have to replace Sif with Mordo as she is a skill character. If you have unlocked Hela by some chance, feel free to use her instead of Scientist Supreme. She and Mordo as a pair will make this campaign much easier. If not then use some character Like Loki, Yondu or Hand Sorceress but your progress will be much slower.
Character
Replacement
Availability
Rank
Thor
Ronan
Scientist Supreme
Hela, Loki, Yondu
Orbs, Orbs, Heroes 1-9
Unlock, 6-star
Sif
Mordo
Arena Store
Unlock
Heimdal
Investment section is almost not needed here. Go for level 65, gear tier 12 and purple abilities for all the Asgardians and Mordo in a way you see fit. Save your orange gear and ability materials for Phoenix.
This is a 2 star team and will fall off if we don’t find a way to rank them up.
AIM
Credit for this team goes to Tauna. He has content that was made intelligently with a lot of thought and analysis so make sure to check out his channel.
This team is called A.I.M. and they are amazing. They have a unique mechanic that thrives on actually having negative effects and then passes them on to the enemy team. I find them very unique in the way they work.
This is not your main team but they have a very important role long-term as they are a requirement for farming Hela which will lead us to Phoenix. And for Dark Dimension I which is your best preparation for DDII and III.
An argument can be made that Sinister 6 would be a better team to get Hela because then you can get Shuri and Invisible Woman. True but I don’t value Invisible Woman that much and Shuri can be obtained with cheaper Blitz store characters. And Sinister 6 are no good for DDI. AIM will cover both Hela and DDI. Please check the Phoenix guide to see bigger picture.
Team
Alternatives
Should you have an easier time ranking up one of the alternatives rather than A.I.M. Researcher or should you have better red stars, please go for that character.
Investment
Character
Level
Gear
Basic
Special
Ultimate
Passive
A.I.M. Researcher
64
10
6
6
N/A
4[5]
A.I.M. Assaulter
64
10
6
6
N/A
4[5]
A.I.M. Security
60
12
6
6
N/A
4
Scientist Supreme
68
12
6
7
6
4
Graviton
64
12
6
6
6
4[5]
There are some good T4 abilities here of which Scientist Supreme’s specials seems to be of most value for longer period. Use the others only once you have gathered enough for Phoenix. First Scientist Supreme special, AIM Assaulter Passive, Graviton Passive and then AIM Researcher Passive.
Considerations
Because our Asgardian team has just a bare minimum star rank, it may happen that they fall off in arena so every once in a while it is important to test your AIM team to see if they surpassed the Asgardians. This is the the downside of this guide. But it is a trade-off made so we could get Phoenix as soon as possible. Ronan will take priority in raid store over Thor, Mordo in arena store over Heimdal and Graviton in war store over Sif. But more about it in the Phoenix Rising event guide.
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This post focuses on the FIRST team you need to develop, where they excel and where they fall short, who to drop out and when and which teams to focus on later in the game.
Keep in mind that there are far BETTER teams in the game but obtaining them requires money a big amount of luck or money. They will not be described here but if you get some of the characters described in this post that will be useful in the later stages of the game, keep progressing them.
Limited start
In the beginning you will have only a handful of characters to use and you will want to develop BOTH heroes and villains equally to progress their respective campaigns and later the nexus campaign.
But as you level up and clear achievements and daily objectives, you will get orbs that will help you unlock other characters. This guide will help you focus your resources on the characters that are most valuable and save on those that will not provide as much later in the game.
DO NOT invest blue gear or ability materials in ravager minions and don’t progress their level beyond what is needed to clear early campaign nodes.
It is very important to develop ONLY one or two teams first that will help you get to other content. You want the bare minimum of your characters to be the best they can be for the least amount of resources because there will be better teams in the future and you will want to use those materials on them without looking back on the teams you used long time ago but have very little worth now.
Heroes
Team
Alternatives
Rationale
The three S.H.I.E.L.D. Minions are easily accessible within the first week of playing. They are Skill characters and that means the gear for other more valuable characters will not be used. They are very good in early arena, raids and blitz. It doesn’t cost a lot in ability materials to unlock their best synergies. Once matched with Coulson and Fury they will be one of the top teams in the game. Not that important but they are also used to unlock Iron Man.
Thor plays a part in both Cosmic and Mystic Campaign later on. He is a part of Asgardian team that is one of the top 5 teams at this time. And he is also required to unlock Black Bolt which is one of the top characters in the game. He will be unlocked through the welcome calendar just by logging in every day. He is a mystic so he will lift a bit of that skill material pressure from the team.
Captain America is a very plug ‘n’ playable character that can be used in many other teams and it is always. He is Bio so materials required for him should not clash with any other of this team’s members. He provides energy to Thor and a bit to one other team member. He also and provides the sorely needed defense-ups to this team.
I will not write much about the Trooper or Operative as they get left behind later in the game and it is hard for them to find a “home” in other teams. This means using resources on them is wasteful in the long term.
Investment
Note that this is the top investment I could recommend at this time. You will only want invest in them sufficiently to 3-star Heroes 5-3. After that stop! Exception here being Thor as he will need to be beefy for the cosmic and mystic campaigns.
Character
Level
Geartier
Basic
Special
Ultimate
Passive
S.H.I.E.L.D. Assault
48
4
3
3
N/A
3
S.H.I.E.L.D. Medic
54
8
4
4
N/A
3
S.H.I.E.L.D. Security
50
6
3
4
N/A
2
Captain America
48
7
3
4
2
1
Thor
60
10
5
5
5
4
I have left the star rank out because, other than stats, it benefits them only for obtaining Iron Man which is not that important. This means you don’t need to farm them. Just to keep competitive in arena, to help clear content but you can prioritize other characters over them. Exception is Thor which is required for Black Bolt so you won’t mind ranking him up.
Availability
You should be able to clear campaigns with S.H.I.E.L.D. Minions within the first week of playing as well as Thor. Captain America will be unlocked within 2 weeks of playing at 3 stars.
Character
Campaign
Other
S.H.I.E.L.D. Assault
Nexus 2-3
S.H.I.E.L.D. Medic
Heroes 2-3 Villains 1-6
S.H.I.E.L.D. Security
Heroes 3-6
Arena Store (don’t buy here)
S.H.I.E.L.D. Operative
Heroes 4-3
S.H.I.E.L.D. Trooper
Villains 4-3
Captain America
Nexus 1-3 Heroes 6-9
Welcome Calendar
Thor
Welcome Calendar, Raid Orbs
Villains
Team
Alternatives
Rationale
Mercenaries are an easily available team that recently got a boost. They are also required for Payday event. Since gold is the constant bottleneck in the game they should be on your priority list. They are available early in the game and you should progress their star level continuously to progress in payday in order to minimize and postpone the gold bottleneck as much as possible.
Crossbones is a good early game villain with good damage and but he brings nothing else to the table. And has no later use except for maybe some challenges. But good villains will be hard to find at this stage. That is why he is included.
Hand Sorceress is a mystic hand villain. She will provide heals that are absent from this team. Farm-able very early in the game on 2 nodes.
Yondu is a cosmic character that may be useful for the Cosmic campaign where we will get Scientist Supreme but with this guide you will manage with only the 3 Asgardians. Also has some value to unlock Star Lord but for this guide this is low value.
Investment
This, like for the heroes team, is the top investment I can recommend at this time. Build them up just enough to 3-star Villains 5-3. And in case of Yondu only keep investing if you need his help to 3 star Cosmic 1-9 or further for mystic campaign. Then leave them on the side.
Character
Level
Gear
Basic
Special
Ultimate
Passive
Mercenary Riot Guard
51
5
3
3
N/A
1
Mercenary Lieutenant
49
5
3
2
N/A
1
Bullseye
42
4
3
2
2
1
Hand Sorceress
44
4
3
2
N/A
1
Crossbones
40
4
3
2
2
1
Availability
Character
Campaign
Other
Mercenary Riot Guard
Blitz orbs
Mercenary Lieutenant
Villains 3-3
Bullseye
Heroes 2-6 Villains 1-3
Yondu
Heroes 1-9
Hand Sorceress
Heroes 2-9 Nexus 3-3
Crossbones
Beginner event
Blitz orbs
Goals Reached
Don’t expect much from these teams. Their goal is to set you up initially and to get you to Heroes and Villains 5-3 nodes so you can farm AIM Assaulter and Security. This team may even get you to under 1000 arena and make your life easier in raids.
To do list
While you are building this initial team you should also be doing some tasks to prepare for the next stages of the game. This part of the article lets you know what to do in other game parts.
Arena Store
Unlock
Unlock
to 6 stars
If you unlocked Okoye, Black Panther and Killmonger then pause AIM Researcher to unlock to get you started on the Chaos Theory event.
Raid Store
Orbs are normally a far better value so I can’t believe what I am saying but buy these characters:
– He doesn’t drop at all from the orbs and you need him for Black Bolt
– You want to get to Phoenix as soon as possible so 6-star him ASAP
– Just to keep up with other Wakandans for the chaos theory event
If you buy orbs you will have all characters from the orb at around 4 stars.
If you buy the shards from the store you will have 3 characters you need for this guide at 5 stars for the same cost. And you will avoid the physical pain felt when you get Ravager Stitcher.
Don’t buy gear unless no other option. At least for now and only if you are investing in Asgardians or AIM.
Blitz Store
This is a hard one as normally I would say open orbs because of the gold and better value per shard but for this guide you will need only 4 characters from the store at most. so i suggest getting these 4 to 5 stars and then opening orbs.
– 5 star
– 5 star
– 5 star
– buy to catch up to other mercenaries only for the payday event. Then pause.
Once this is done or if you are gold starved go for the orbs .
War store
Unlock
6 stars
Resource allocation
As a general rule of thumb, don’t use anything you don’t need right now. An example would be Purple gear orbs. Save them for when you know which characters will be using or an orb opening event. Another example would be Ravager characters (or any other). Mine sits at 500 power just because I had no other villains to go through villains campaign at the time. He will stay there as long as I don’t find a use for him or until they change him so he is not trash.
Energy
Keep buying 4 energy refreshes daily for power cores. It is the best investment of your cores. Benefits are numerous.
Guild
This is very important. A good guild may have use from you and you from them. Your progress will be much slower without the daily raids, donations and Stark tech. Please check Marvel Strike Force discord channel to find a good guild.
Keep donating to be able to buy red stars promotions for your characters.
Also you won’t be able to farm Sif or Graviton and other war store characters unless you are in an alliance that plays war or level 20 at least.
Other
Blitz and raids are very important to your roster and character development. Keep blitzing and raiding as much as you can.
Where to next?
By now you should be able to guess. We only progressed campaigns to get AIM characters and in stores we are focusing on Asgardians.
Asgardians are the ones that will get you through the cosmic campaign to get Scientist Supreme and mystic campaign to get Loki. They are your arena, raid and war defense team. They can get you Black Bolt which is needed for Ebony Maw.
As you will probably not have all the Asgardian characters you will have to use replacements. Scientist Supreme you will use as a healer of the group so she has a priority over other AIM characters in terms of leveling, abilities and gear.
AIM will be used much later on in the Dark Dimension I. They are easy to farm, don’t need a lot of resources and even though slow for raids, they have super sustain that is needed for this game mode.
DDI is super important to set you up for Dark Dimension II and III.
Please read this guide to discover how to progress your teams further.
Comments
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or 
depending on the farming progress.
Arena Store
to get you started on the Chaos Theory event.
Raid Store
Blitz Store
– 5 star
– 5 star
– 5 star
– buy to catch up to other mercenaries only for the payday event. Then pause.
War store
6 stars
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