Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3

Games
82

Add 4 more heroes to the groups that have completed the campaign. They’re currently level 40. I have no idea what there needs to be so many versions of Spiderman, but three of them fought together, led by Thor, in this go-round.

Thor 40 (Mained)
Venom 40
Spider-Gwen 40
Spiderman (Miles Morales) 40

Of all these creatures in the game, these guys (below) are my favorite to beat up. Not because they do anything interesting, but they actually look like the sorts of goons I’d expect to see in a comic book. And they always show up in large groups.

Alpha Primitives:

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I really enjoyed Thor this time around because of his utility. He flies and he’s got super strength. It means I don’t have to swap to a different hero when doing certain things. I’m not a fan of his default Ability, Thunder Strike. because it locks him in place for a few seconds and if an enemy moves around the ability tracks too slowly to keep up, but he is great at staggering and stunning.

Miles Morales was also great because of his electric webs all over the floor. I didn’t notice anything interesting with Gwen or Venom that the other two didn’t already cover. I only grouped 3 versions of Spiderman together because they were all my lowest level characters (6 and 7) at the start.

When I’m done testing out heroes like this I’ll push deeper into Superior difficulty and the challenge rifts.

83

RE: Hawkeye

I’ve been leveling up a group the last couple days. They’re currently level 30, and my main is Hawkeye (my favorite character from the one Avenger movie I’ve watched). Well, after 30 levels I was convinced the game version of the character was terrible. It felt weak, unfocused, didn’t synergize well at all, and a couple of his powers were a little too fiddly (because of ground targeting). But all that has changed because (after 30 freaking levels) I finally realized the cause for a certain anomaly I kept witnessing but couldn’t put my finger on, occassionally I’d see massive critical damage attacks I couldn’t explain.

Here’s what I finally figured it out: Hawkeye can combo his own abilities together and get team synergy with himself. It requires chaining certain abilities together, and it’s a massive EP drain, but it suddenly elevates him to useful status. I’m no longer underwhelmed so much as annoyed that it’s taken me this long to figure out.

He has two synergy attacks he can trigger all by himself (that I know of). I don’t know the names of all the different synergy attacks themselves, but here are the skills he can use to trigger the huge AE crits they deliver:

  • Scattershot -> Piercing Shot = big booms in a tight space.
  • Exploding Arrows -> Shock Value = big booms in a wider area.

It’s actually a gamechanger for this character, because he was doing just terrible 1v1 against bosses and elites.

Anyway, this is my 5th or so full team of 4 that I’ve been leveling up through the campaign, and now I can’t help but wonder what other heroes that I’ve played might have had similar functionality. Nobody else on my current team can do anything like this, so maybe not many.

84

Man, I played a bunch of this during the holidays, but then moved over to Fenyx. Went back to this last weekend and hit a wall at the end (I think) of the Wakanda area. All my dudes are at least level 30 and I went from slowly but surely moving thru areas to just getting crushed in Wakanda. This change happened between levels it felt like. Ugh.

I’m playing on whatever the easiest level is.

And even the Rifts sure seem a little too hard. I hadn’t done but a few previously, but I would think my level 30 dudes and dudettes would clear a Level 10 or so Rift with ease. Eh, not so much.

There is the distinct possibility that I kinda suck.

85

I’ve been getting back into this lately as well and that happened to me as well. I was about level 28 on my team and getting wrecked so I went back to the early Infinity Trials and beat a few of the low level ones to get the XP cubes. Then I used those to bump up a few levels and that did the trick. I’m rolling with Black Panther, Storm, Deadpool, and Cyclops for what it’s worth. Some of those early Rifts have tricks to them too which isn’t just about levels.

86

If I remember correctly you’ll want to be 35-36ish at the end of Wakanda. And there’s no real penalty other than a little repetition for just going back a world or two and running through it again to level up before running Wakanda again.

As for rifts, don’t let the level of the Rifts fool you, some are terribly difficult for their level. They can technically be done with the right team and the right synergies etc, but some types of rifts are buttloads easier at the same level.

I’m not sitting in front of my Switch at the moment, but the first group of rifts has a level 14 event (at the very top center) and the second set of rifts has a level 24*(?)ish wave event at the very bottom/bottom left. These are by far the easiest (but still give okay exp) for your level because you’re mostly just murdering waves of easy enemies without any timers or attack penalties or anything hanging over your head.

You probably already know this, but this goes for any new players too, pay very special attention to the rules for each rift. it’s easy to start one up and not notice that your basic attacks and abilities are only doing 1% their normal damage because it’s an EX rift or something, where you’ve got to use extreme attacks. Same goes for Abilitiy/synergy rifts, anything but those will do 1% of their normal damage, and you have to use abilities only, unless you simply need to spam basic attacks to charge up your EP or something.

Grinding rifts this way can still take time though. To raise a bunch of your heroes 5-6 levels each or whatever can still take many, many runs through various rifts.

There’s also a trick you can use if you need to heal up in a pinch in battle. if you have XP cubes sitting around unused you can eat just enough of them to level your damaged character. This will heal them up to full. This is mostly helpful when there just aren’t any red orbs dropping and you’re super close to winning/losing and don’t want to blow it.

87

Ohh, thanks for the quick responses. I think part of my problem is I’m kind of terrible at the synergies in fights. Regardless, I’m gonna hop back in and try to grind a little on some of the rifts. Didn’t realize I’d somehow gotten to a point I was being outleveled. Wakanda sure seems like a huge jump in difficulty.

88

I’ve been running the campaign so often and leveling up so many heroes that I’ve run out of Ability Orbs, which means I can’t rank my newer hero’s abilities until I grind out more orbs.

I’ve decided to put together a special team to run a bunch of rifts and gather more orbs, but I wanted to come up with a theme for the team. Because it’s February that means it’s Black History Month, so I went with that. My new team is:

  • Falcon
  • Black Panther
  • Storm
  • Luke Cage

Unlike the Women of Marvel bonus, there’s no special team bonus for being black. But these 4 still have a decent team bonus total of 17% (4% Strength, 10% Resilience, 3% Energy). I think the highest I’ve seen so far is 22% with another team of mine, so this is far up there too.

I haven’t unlocked Blade yet or he would totally be my main in this group, since he’s my favorite Marvel hero. And I recently played a lot of Miles Morales so he’s a back up selection in case my team lacks something he’s got.

I figure I’ll run a bunch of rifts that award Ability Orbs and try out the Gauntlets if they offer any too. I only just discovered gaunlets a day or two ago so I’m not sure what they give yet.

I’ll probably main Storm for these runs because I’ve mained a ton of melee characters and want to switch it up a bit.

One very minor thing about the game that I noticed is how good it feels to claw through a pile of enemies. Team Ninja did a great job utilizing the Switch controller’s HD rumble features. Different attacks feel different, and shredding a dozen enemies with someone like Wolverine just feels unique and great. It’s a subtle touch that adds a lot.

89

Currently doing my first campaign run on Superior difficulty and I’ve hit a roadblock on the M.O.D.O.K. fight in Wakanda. My current team is level 59, 59, 59, 68, but I regularly die when he’s around 30% health.

I haven’t put a whole lot of thought into my ISO-8 upgrades at all, and except for simply keeping stuff slotted in the empty spots I haven’t fine-tuned anybody in that regard. I’m wondering if my time would be best spent just leveling up more in Rifts, maybe changing my group comp (I like my current one though), or min max/maxing my ISO-8 enhancements.

If I change my current party I’d have to level a hero or two up to to these guys, and my other heroes are level 40.

And I hate the idea of spending resources on ISO upgrades on heroes I won’t main forever. It’s this indecision that keeps me paralyzed on this front. I’d rather all my gold, powder, and gems just sit in a hole and rot than get wasted on upgrades I might not use on other teams. This is why I have 5,000 unused potions at the end of RPGs.

90

Apparently someone at Team Ninja felt sorry for the way Cyclops was treated in the X-Men movies and made him a freaking maniac in MUA3. I’m only just now getting around to him and he’s been gathering up S+ scores in rifts ever since.

91

While I’m playing on Easy or whatever the more casual difficulty is called, this statement pretty much stopped me in my tracks. I’m still in Wakanda like I’d mentioned a week or so ago, and I’m still getting destroyed. I bumped my characters using xp boosts and played a few rifts. Now I’m now my into 40s with all my mains and see no way to not get killed by various beam and ranged opponents. This is only halfway thru Wakanda I think. I can’t get the urge to keep trying when I know I’m way underpowered to fight MODAK in a few more areas. Damn!

92

MODOK is a different sort of fight on lower difficulties because he gives you a lot more room to breathe. On Superior he’s a laser-machinegun-bull trapped in a China Shop and it makes him tougher to deal with.

Don’t let my post scare you off. While I wouldn’t say he’s easy the first time you face him at Friendly difficulty, he’s not worth stressing over.

93

I’m guessing the ranged opponents you’re getting destroyed by are the purple sniper guys. Yea, they are a total pain to deal with in a couple areas the first couple times you encounter them.

Here’s the thing about those guys, if you dodge roll or quickly fly your way over to them they’ll just sit there aiming in the same direction as always (because they have tunnel vision with their scopes) while you stand behind them and murder them to death.

In a couple sections there are rockets on the ground you can toss at them, but usually you can just dodge roll/fly through their red targeting lasers and run right up next to them and either kick them off the ledges into the crowd so your party can quickly dispatch of them, or just kill them from behind because they’re so busy looking through a scope they don’t react to you right there.

But if they get a shot off on you, OMG it hurts, no matter the difficulty. We’re talking 80% health zapped in a single shot. No matter the situation, no matter the sub-area, they’re always the priority (except for the one section listed next).

And I don’t know if you’ve gotten there yet, but the biggest pain in the ass on the whole map is the giant laser Panther Statue that melts a corridor until you destroy two devices at its feet. In that area your best bet is to ignore the enemies and just race your way to his feet and destroy those devices asap. Just use a hero that has a charged up EX power or some EP for Ability attacks and the devices will go pretty quickly. There are 3 or so snipers there as well, and one of them in particular is a real asshole, but if you manage to run past them they’ll ignore you once you’re behind them and the other guys down there won’t have the DPS to do much to do while you beat the small radar dish things at the panther’s feet.

And finally, there are a couple sections with lots of Elites (the guys with purple bars under their health bar). Certain heroes excel at knocking down those purple bars, which will STAGGER them. Elites take critical damage when staggered, and if you have a hero (like Drax) charging through a bunch of them you can knock out all their purple bars to stagger and then unload using EX or Synergy/Ability powers to really multiply your damage output.

Staggering is very important for several enemies in Wakanda, the mind controlled Wakanda chicks, the guys in the Red Hazmat suits, etc. if you see a purple bar, remember they’ll only take a fraction of the damage you COULD do if you manage to stagger them.

Most enemies recover from Stagger fairly quickly, but when staggered you also have a better chance to STUN them, and stun will not only reset the stagger bar down to 0, it will also take longer to recover from, allowing you to dump even more damage on them.

Check your heroes and their powers for the Stagger rating of their various powers, and when you find a hero with a good rating try spamming that Ability and your Heavy basic attack on an Elite until they’re staggered, then unload on them. They become a lot easier to manage.

Do you know which 4 heroes you’re currently playing off the top of your head?

94

Oh ya. Right after I bumped my guys levels I had passed an area or two that had previously crushed me. I’m thinking it’s all good now. Then I hit the giant Panther and keep getting torched over and over before quitting. That was a fe weeks ago. Now when I start I have a level full of those snipers and one mistake kills me so I just quit before even making it to Laser Panther Asshole.

But thanks a ton for the info. Maybe I’ll get past Wakanda next time. 👍

95

I guess I’m going to try this game again. Last time I got stuck on the Kingpin. I’m confused by ISOs and rifts and synergies and upgrades but maybe it will all make sense this time!

96

Okay, I’m trying to do the first rift, the Doctor Octopus one, where the Synergy attacks are the only ones that do damage. So I have two questions:

  1. How can I tell which of my attacks do the most Stagger damage? I assume I should rely on attacks that don’t use EP, because I want to save those for Synergy damage when he’s downed, right?

  2. How can I figure out which of my attacks are compatible with other characters for Synergy attacks? Do I need to look on Reddit, or is there something in the game UI that shows me my team synergies?

  3. Can someone explain what the L+R attack does, and how I know when I can trigger it? I just end up spamming L+R every now and then, and sometimes it pops up with all the characters and there’s a massive attack. Is it just a massive synergy attack with all four characters?

97

The cool thing about Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is that all this stuff is documented in the game. I don’t mean that as a RTFM comment, but as a point of praise. You don’t have to go to reddit or ask here, although someone who’s played lately might be able to answer readily. But the details you’re asking about stagger damage, synergies, and EX attacks are all explained in the documentation. It’s in the options menu under “tips” or something misleading like that.

-Tom

98

Cap: pretty tough and can hold his own when I’m not playing him.
Crystal: decent aoe and ranged attacks. Flies
Psylocke: read she was strong melee if a bit fragile. I seem to be doing fine with her
Ghost Rider: Read he has good aoe and something else. Don’t even remember, but he is my default ‘oh god, I’m getting killed, I need to do something now’ character.

At this point all are over 40 and I killed of MODAK pretty easily, like you said. Ass-face snipers were my toughest adversary in Wakanda, but once I did @kerzain said and made bee-line for them they weren’t nearly as bad.

Now I want more new costumes, but they’re all hidden behind stuff I feel I’m not powerful enough to take on. :(

99

Thanks Tom! I know I need to go through all that, so I’ll set aside some time today. But it’s so tempting to just jump in and play the game!

So after all my complaining about stagger damage and synergy attacks, I figured out the difference between synergy and Ultimate Alliance attacks, and then I beat Doc Ock in the Trials for the first time! I just watched the stagger bar pretty closely, knocked him down with Cap’s shield as much as possible, and then hit him hard once he was down. And once I was past that, I used the same techniques to get past Kingpin for the first time!

I need some sort of randomizer to force me to try new characters.

100

I totally started as a button masher at this game. Then as I got characters I liked, I started checking their attacks and how to, you know, actually do them. Then I’d kinda focus on one or two while still doing a lot of button mashing, then slowly get muscle memory built up an start branching out into new moves and/or combos. I’m still pretty sucky at most of the more elaborate combo stuff and still do plenty of button mashing, but you can certainly get along doing so while still building up the skills to really play your characters well.

Also, some bosses are more boss than others. Kingpin and Doc Oc were horrible to get thru. But others I can pretty much get thru with minimal aggravation. Even MODOK who I had been worried about was fairly easy. It took a while, but I wasn’t ever too close to any of my heroes dying.

101

This game never goes on sale I guess. I keep thinking about getting it, but then don’t. I am on another Marvel kick thanks to Marvel United, so the temptation is there again. I am guessing the DLC pack is worth it as it is even MOAR Marvel toys in the toy box?