Marvels Avengers General Tips for Marvel's Avengers

Introduction

Hi there, just want to share some useful tips for new players, things to know before (or upon) starting the game. I will update this guide from time to time whenever I come across a new tip. Some of the items I won't be going in depth, otherwise it will make this guide really long. I will just touch on them briefly.

Veteran players (is the game considered old enough to have veteran?), feel free to share your tips in the comment with others as well, I might include them in the "Users' Tips" section below.

Note: I uses a controller to play the game, so my tips will reference the button input on a controller wherever applicable. I will do my best to include the key input for keyboard as well.

Disclaimer: I am (and always will be) a solo player, hence my tips will try to optimize for a solo gameplay. However, if you play co-op, some of the tips (like completing certain war zones or challenges) will be much easier as you play with others.

General Tips

Backup your saves often. This is very important as there are many reports of save file corrupted or the game is messed up in some ways after doing certain tasks. Your save files are located in your computer's "Document" folder, under "Marvel's Avengers".

I personally encountered the infinite campaign loading screen, and fortunately I backup my saves often, I only lost a couple hours of progress. Of course for this particular bug there are other recommended fixes (going into Avengers Initiative, get invited to other Strike Team, etc), and I tried some of it, but it didn't work for me, so I'm glad I backup my saves.

Explore the in-game Settings menu, there are quite a number of settings that could make the game more tolerable for some players. Settings such as Aim Mode, Run Mode, and Defense Mode, you can either set them to hold or toggle. Generally I would recommend to set Aim and Defense to Hold, while Run to Toggle. Multi-Tap Interactivity is based on your preference.

Same as above, in the settings menu, if you find that the game is blurry and shaky, you can also turn off "Motion Blur" and "Shake Sensitivity" down to 0. This will probably make the game smoother. If you are using keyboard and mouse, you may want to turn off "Auto-Center Camera" as well. I won't be touching on the graphic settings as this will depend on your PC/GPU, do explore on the best optimization for your computer for a more enjoyable experience.

(Update: The latest patch allow "Motion Blur" to be toggled from 0 to 10 as well, you could just turn it down to 0 if you want it to be off.)

Explore, explore, and explore. Most maps have additional side objectives that you can complete. Use your tactical awareness; V button on keyboard, or Up directional pad for controller, to see what objectives are present in the map.

You will either get some strongboxes (loots), special enemy that can be defeated for loot, or AIM prisoners to rescue (no loot, only for achievement progress, complete challenges or assignments). It won't take much time for those detours for some potential good loots.

Combat & Heroes Tips

This is going to be one of the most important tips in this guide (combat wise). Master your DODGE and PARRY. I can't stress how important this is, especially in end game and higher difficulty level. Just before an enemy hits you, there will be a circle that appears. It will have a few colors (While, Blue, Yellow, Red), you can Dodge all of it, but you can only Parry white, blue, and yellow.

On the controller, dodge is the Circle button, and Parry is RT/R2. For keyboard, dodge is Ctrl key, and Parry is Q. Timing is key, practice in the HARM room if you are not very good at it.

Try to play and level all of the heroes whenever you can. If you are a solo player like me, you will definitely need your strike team to be at a competent gear power level at end game (at least 4 out of the 6 heroes for a complete strike team). Each heroes has their own playstyle, do explore and see what works for you.

In the same manner, whenever I unlock a new hero throughout my campaign story, I immediately check out their skills and get an idea how I want to play this particular hero in the long run. I will be doing this as well whenever a new hero is released. If you are still uncertain, there are many resources online on hero builds that you can check out as well.

There is 2 different types of level progression. Hero Level, and (gear) Power Level. As you progress your Hero level (experience earned by defeating enemies or completing objectives), you will earn skill point for each level, and those skill points can be spent to boost your hero's skills (learning new skills).

Power Level on the other hand, is your gear/equipment level, and this is where you should focus on. In the early game you may not be able to do some missions due to a low power level (the map will indicate the power level requirement). More details on this will be found below in the "Gears & Resources" section. Hero level is capped at 50, while Power Level is capped at 150.

Learn the basic of combat, all heroes have their own Light Attack, Heavy Attack (effective to break enemy's block), Ranged Attack, and variations of them unlockable with skill points. Each hero also comes with a Support Heroic Ability (L1/LB or keyboard 1), Assault Heroic Ability (R1/RB or keyboard 2), and Ultimate Heroic Ability (L1/LB + R1/RB or keyboard 3).

You can learn more about each skills in their respective skill page. And since there is no respec function (you will eventually get to learn all skills at level 50), be mindful of learning a new skill in the beginning to match your desired playstyle.

Use the HARM (Holographic Augmented Reality Machine) room to explore each hero's skill and playstyle. And complete their respective tutorial as soon as it is unlocked. Likewise, do each hero's iconic mission as soon as it is unlocked (unless you are well under the recommended power level, which is usually the case with their 2nd iconic mission). Only Kamala and Iron Man does not have a specific mission map to complete, but rather a set of tasks/objectives required to be completed.

Enemies Tips

Master your DODGE and PARRY. Sorry, I had to repeat that.

Perform Takedown on enemies whenever possible. When an enemy is stunned (the bar underneath their health reaches maximum), there will be a button prompt (controller B + Y or Circle + Triangle, keyboard is E) on them to perform a takedown. You can even perform a takedown on unsuspected (or newly spawned) enemies if you are quick enough.

Takedown generally defeats the smaller or weaker enemies, while taking out a chunk of the bigger/stronger enemies' health. Another benefit of performing takedown whenever you can is that it regenerates your willpower (health) on each successful takedown.

When in any combat situation, always take out the turrets, flying enemies (drones), and ranged (those nutbags that always shoot you from afar) enemies first.

In late games they can be a pain, and are usually the cause of your hero downing. Especially when the map has a "projectile damage increase" modifiers. Otherwise, you will either find yourself getting hit a lot, or dodging a lot instead of hitting the other enemies.

As each hero has their own ranged playstyle, do not be ashamed to abuse it in difficult situations. When you find yourself overwhelmed or at a disadvantage (surrounded by tough enemies, shielded enemies, etc), get behind cover or high ground, and blast/shoot/throw away with your ranged attack. This technique would (hopefully) help to prolong your survival.

Know your enemies. When you first encounter a new enemy, try to understand their strengths and weaknesses (as well as their attacks). This will help you to adapt your playstyle and/or refocus your targets whenever a certain type of enemy spawned.

For example, when an Adaptoid (regenerates health when it gets low) appear, you know to focus on him when his health gets critical, or a Spin (attack that drains your heroic energy) enemy type that you have to pay attention (either kill first or dodge their attacks) to prevent them from making your heroic abilities useless. I intend to create a guide on enemy types and strategy to deal with them, whenever I am free.

Gears & Resources

Another important tip, DO NOT UPGRADE your gears in the beginning. Save all your materials/resources until you get gear power level 130. Until then, just auto "Equip Best Gears" (a button prompt will appear if you obtained higher power level gears).

There's no reason to upgrade your gears in the beginning as you will be changing them often. At end game, you will need all the resources/materials that you have gathered (especially if you are doing it for at least 4 heroes).

Similarly, every old gears that you swapped out, or unused gear, dismantle (controller Y or Triangle) them for materials. You only have 9 slots for each type of gear, so there's no reason to keep them, except for 2 occasions:

You have two same power level gear, but have different perks that you might want to swap out for different situations.

Keeping an old (lower power level) legendary until you get one of each (excluding artifact) to equip for achievement purposes (I got mine at lvl 23 Captain America). This is not necessary as eventually you will get and be using all legendary or higher rarity gears during late game contents. Do this only if you want to get the achievement early. I intend to do an Achievement guide (when I am free) as well.

Speaking of artifacts, there are two types; Minor Artifact, and Major Artifact. You will unlock 1 minor artifact slot in the beginning, and the 2nd slot will only be unlocked when you reach Hero level 15. You can get 2 Major Artifact from the main campaign (1 midway, 1 at the end), and at least 1 from a mission chain in Avengers Initiative.

Major Artifact is the only gear shared across all heroes, BUT each have to be upgraded separately. I will update more info on Major Artifact and their perks soon.

Whereas Minor Artifacts are usually obtained from Drop Zones missions reward in the War Zone (you can get it as a normal loot from either enemies or strongboxes as well, but drop zone is a guaranteed reward). As your Hero's power level are taken from the average of your gears, it is recommended to farm Drop Zones once in a while to get better minor artifacts as you progress.

Open strongboxes whenever you encounter them to farm for gears (even though if you get lower power level gear, you can still dismantle them for resources). Most maps/missions have strongboxes that you can open, even short missions like Drop Zone have at least 1 before going into the main objective area.

I usually repeats the particular hero's iconic mission as well, as the mission reward is always the character specific gear (purple rarity if it's the 1st iconic mission, legendary if 2nd). Or you just play any long missions (threat sectors, villain sectors, iconic missions, etc), and look for the side objectives with tactical awareness (controller Up dpad, or keyboard V).

Just for a reference, I get 9 strongboxes (plus 3 more if got vault/cache strongbox location) in the 2nd Iconic Hulk mission, and at least 8 strongboxes (not including the 3 more DNA strongboxes) in the Snowy Tundra Vault mission. Identify which missions/maps have a generous amount of strongboxes, and farm them with the specific hero you want to increase their gear power level.

It is said that playing on higher difficulty challenge will reward better loots/gears, I can neither confirm nor deny this statement as I have not tested this thoroughly.

Gears have different stats, understanding what each stats does will help you choose between two equal power level gear (with different stats) to complement your playstyle:

Might - Affects your melee damage in combat

Precision - Affects your range damage in combat

Valor - Affects the critical damage done, as well as the effectiveness of Heroic abilities

Resolve - Affects your maximum willpower (health) and how quickly it recovers

Proficiency - Affects your critical hit chance, as well as the chance your gear perks to activate

Intensity - Affects your status effect resistance, and how quick you get out of it

Resilience - Affects your armor/defense (how much damage you take from a hit)

In addition, gears also have different perks, and some of the perks adds status effect to any of your attacks. It is imperative to know what each of the status effects does:

Plasma - Burn enemies, possibly staggering them, and occasionally interrupting their attacks

Gamma - Poisons enemies, giving them damage-over-time. They will also spread poison to nearby enemies, and they explode when defeated

Cosmic - Dealing this will Ionized enemies, making them take more damage, and essentially gives you life-steal

Pym Particles - Shrinks enemies (reduces them in size), making them deals less damage and takes more damage

Cryo - Freezes enemies and slow them down, disabling their defensive ability as well

Shock - Shocks enemies, increasing damage dealt to them, as well as increasing the chances for Critical Attack to occur

Dailies (& Weekly)

As soon as you unlocks Faction Assignments, take all of them. You will have 8 assignments from Shield, and 8 assignments from Inhuman Alliance. They are generally easy assignments, and can be completed as you play through the different missions in war zone, or while you are playing the campaign, doing challenges, or just joining other players in co-op missions.

Do them as you can to increase your faction ranks, and get rewarded for it (with resources and access to some gears available for purchase). Even if you don't complete the assignments, as far as I know, there are no penalties for not completing it. So just take them all the moment you log in to the game.

The faction coordinator also gives out daily missions (usually Villain Sectors) that you can attempt (if your power level is high enough) that will reward you with a ton of experience for your faction as well as a DNA key for opening DNA strongboxes in Vault missions. I will create a guide on the list of faction assignments soon, for references and some tips if necessary.

Update: Faction Assignments guide is ready, link at the end.

Additionally, try to complete the daily (and weekly) challenges for each hero as you log in. Completing challenges will give you points to progress the challenge card. I won't go in details on the rewards or ways to skip forward on the rewards (using credits). Some of the challenges are pretty easy and straightforward, some of it you may have to grind a little.

For most of the kill challenges, I generally use the HARM room (either the tutorial for that hero, or Level 1 room) to complete them easily. You also have the option to refresh the challenge if it is not appealing, BUT you can only refresh one of the daily challenges per day, and one of the weekly challenges per week. So only refresh if you really do not want to do that particular challenge (otherwise you might get an even more annoying challenge after refreshing).

Challenges and faction assignments can be done simultaneously if they are similar, so it is recommended to collect all assignments, and then check each hero's challenges to match them accordingly to manage the time needed to complete them efficiently. As the same, I will be creating a list of challenges for each heroes as soon as possible.

Update: Challenges guide is ready, link at the end.

Besides assignments and challenges, the gear and cosmetic shop also refreshes some of their items daily and weekly. Do check them out if you are interested in buying some cosmetics with in-game currency.

War Zones & Mission Types

This section is to include the different types of missions available on the war table for an easier understanding. Campaign Story missions will not be included here.

Drop Zone - A short mission (range from 3 to 8 minutes) generally consisting of a single objective to complete. They randomly appears in the war table, and the mission always reward a Minor Artifact. Most (if not all) drop zones has 1 strongbox (bronze) located right before entering the main objective room. There are 6 different types of drop zones:

Control Drop Zone - You will need to capture different points in the area, usually for JARVIS to hack into the system.

Assault Drop Zone - You will need to defeat all enemies in the area, usually a few waves of them

Defend Drop Zone - You will need to defend some NPCs from enemies

Sabotage Drop Zone - You will need to destroy some facilities/items in the area

Dominion Drop Zone - You will need to stay in position and maintain for a certain period of time

Elimination Drop Zone - You will need to defeat some special enemy units (marked with a skull)

Iconic Mission - These are specific missions tied to your Hero. They will reward that particular hero's specific gear upon completion, however it is not necessary to use the hero to complete the mission. It will usually have a few objectives to complete, and each Hero (except for Iron Man and Kamala) have 2 iconic missions. I recommend to attempt them as soon as it is available (as long as you meet the power level requirement).

Threat Sector - A generic missions that you can repeat, with objectives that usually needs you to infiltrate into the secret base. It will usually takes about 15 to 20 minutes, longer if you do some exploration.

The common one seen during campaign is "Stark Realities", where it usually also contain a cache strongbox and hidden Shield Vault that you can access, obtaining a location to another Vault mission. (Sabotage Threat Sector)

Others include "The Inhuman Condition"; where you have to save some hostages from AIM's area. Completing this mission will give you 7 hostages rescued (either for challenges, assignments, or achievements), 3 in the beginning, and 4 at the ending. (Defend Threat Sector)

Threat Sectors have different types as well (Defend, Sabotage, Control, etc), but this only reflects the final objective in the mission, in the beginning and middle you may have to do other types of objectives as well to get to the final area of the mission.

Vault Mission - Only unlocked when you discovers another cache strongbox in the other missions' map.

The example photo is a combination of 2 screenshots, the left one shows the radar that appears to indicate how close you are to the location of the vault (this is the same for both locating the cache, as well as during the actual vault mission map), and the right one shows the switch to interact once you get to the location. (In the photo, I got the cache location in the 2nd Iconic Hulk mission)

For the actual Vault mission, upon entering you will need to unlock the mechanism by capturing different zones to input the code in a specific order. All the while dealing with a bunch of enemies. Vault missions are very useful to obtain lots of loots/gears as it usually have a lot of side objectives with strongboxes (as well as DNA strongboxes).

Villain Sector - A rather long mission with a few objectives, and you will get to face a boss at the end in an epic showdown. It could be Abomination, Taskmaster, or even a Warbot. Villain Sector can be picked up daily from your faction coordinator, and completing them will reward you a DNA key, as well as a useful resource; Polychoron, that is used to upgrade Major Artifact.

Hives - A lengthy mission as well, you will have to go through a couple of floor challenges, fighting enemies and completing objectives as you go. This mission is only available after completing the campaign, and entering Avengers Initiative.

A variation of it known as Mega Hives is similar, but uses your entire team, when one dies, another one joins the fight, until there is no one left, then it resets.

Faction Mission - Similar to the iconic missions, but it is SHIELD-specific. Completing them will give you faction experience. This mission is only available after completing the campaign, and entering Avengers Initiative.

HARM Challenges - Takes place in the Helicarrier, it serves as a training ground for Avengers against a variety of enemies and increasing difficulty.

Users' Tips

Users' Tips from comments will be added here, and will be credited accordingly.

End Notes (& Other Guides)

Thank you for reading this guide, hopefully it has been helpful for you in your Reassembling journey. Please forgive me if there's any spelling or grammatical error, as English is not my first language. (Do let me know of any errors in the comment and I will fix it as soon as possible)

Feel free to share more tips as well to other users, I will add them to the section above whenever I can.

I know the game has been getting a lot of hate lately, and I know that nothing is perfect. There will always be two sides to view at it. Nevertheless, for me, I will just enjoy the game as it is.

In the meantime, I will be working on the few other guides mentioned above. Til next time, cheers!

Update for new guides:

List of Faction Assignments

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2233792042

List of Challenges

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2233797917

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2229300876

General Tips for Marvel's Avengers