Marvel Contest of Champions is an official Marvel game created by Kabam for Android and iOS mobile platforms. In the game you can create a team of heroes and villains, as you go on quests to defeat some of the Marvel Universe’s most vile villains. You can team up with friends and other summoners to create a powerful alliance, and earn rewards while at it. All in all, this is quite an immersive mobile title and a completely different beast from titles such as Marvel Future Fight, but since we want to make the transition easier for you if you’re just starting out, we’ve cooked up some Marvel Contest of Champions tips, cheats and strategies that you can refer to any time that you’re stuck somewhere in the game. These tips, while ideally written for beginners, can also be used by more advanced players as a refresher on basic strategies.
1. Class Bonuses Matter A Lot
One of the first things you should be aware of is the class bonus, which could deal out additional damage for the side with the advantage, while lowering any damage that you may receive on your end. The class bonus hierarchy is as follows – Skill > Tech > Mutant > Science > Mystic > Cosmic > Skill; keep this in mind when creating a team so you can enter battle with a class advantage and survive more difficult, more advanced levels.
2. You Can Get Heroes In Many Ways
There are several ways in which you can recruit more heroes to your cause. For starters, the Premium Hero Crystal will have you spending 100 units for a decent chance at getting heroes with two to four stars. We’d say this is the best way for you to get higher-skilled heroes. The Daily Crystal, which rewards you for logging in daily, can give you heroes with one to three stars, though the chances of adding a three-star hero to your lineup aren’t too high. You can also get an Arena Crystal for winning arena fights, and an Arena Event Ranking Reward. For the former, the chances of getting a four-star hero are quite small, but it’s a chance nonetheless.
3. Upgrade Your Higher-Ranked Heroes First
So you’ve got a few heroes to start with and you’re now able to upgrade them. Should you go ahead and do it, or wait it out a bit? We’d advise you to wait until you’ve got three-star heroes (or higher) in your lineup so you can upgrade those highly-ranked characters before everyone else. Upgrading two-star heroes is fine if that’s the highest rank you’ve had for a while. As for one-star heroes, only upgrade them when you’ve upgraded everyone else in your lineup to the fullest extent possible.
We suggest this for the simple reason that higher-ranked heroes have more potential to do some good for your cause. They’ve got more of the three “S”’s, meaning skills, stats, and synergy, so if you’re planning to spend some ISO-8s on some upgrades, spend them on your stars, meaning your more powerful, rarer heroes.
4. Fight In The Arena
Fighting in the arena is always a good idea in Marvel Contest of Champions, even if you may be putting your winning streak in jeopardy. Never pass up the chance to fight in the arena if you know you’ve got some chance of winning, and if you find yourself losing more often than winning, then you can always level your heroes up to get them up to speed.
5. What’s The Deal With Synergy?
The term “synergy” does not refer to an overused example of business jargon. Synergy refers to the bonuses you receive when you’ve got a valid hero combo on your team. And your synergy bonuses may encompass several types of rewards, including improved health, attack ratings, and critical damage. Synergy bonuses may vary based on the hero who receives them, so always try to ensure you can receive some of these bonuses in the game.
6. Don’t Sell Your Heroes, Even If Their Skills Aren’t Impressive
One temptation you may run into is to sell your lower-ranked heroes. Do not do this – we couldn’t stress this enough! Even if you’ve got a solid roster of heroes with three stars or more, you should not sell your lower-starred heroes, as they’re considered separate as far as arena fights go. You can earn more Arena Crystals by rotating through your lineup of heroes, even the weaker ones, and furthermore, some 3-on-3 fights would require you to have someone who isn’t ranked too highly.
7. Story Quests Come First
As you don’t have an overflowing supply of energy, you need to complete story quests so you can get the catalyst. As for the other, more advanced types of story quests, they can reward you with more experience points and ISO-8, so don’t be daunted – the risk is high, but the rewards are just as high if you choose a difficult quest chain.
Additionally, you can get free units after you complete a quest chain or reach 100 percent in exploration. Think of this bonus tip as a great way for you to earn free units.
8. Start By Going On The Offensive
Finally, we’re giving you some fighting tips for Marvel Contest of Champions, and the first of these tips would be to attack first. This gives you a more formidable chance of lowering the enemy’s hit points; assuming they’re on the defensive and blocking, you can get more free shots to lower their HP. And if you get hit while on the offensive, the upside is that you can refill your special meter at a much faster pace, though the obvious caveat is losing HP on your end.
You also have special moves on top of your basic ones, and these would be the primary way of chipping away at the enemy’s hit points. Your specials should be executed with impeccable timing, meaning you shouldn’t launch them when you know there’s even a small chance of getting blocked. Specials are best fired following a combo hit, and that’s what leads us to the next tip…
9. Complete Your Combos
Don’t leave anyone hanging – once you’ve hit someone, follow through and complete the entire combo sequence. That essentially means remaining on the offensive, and not blocking enemy attacks in the middle of the string. Most of the time, you’ll end up with the upper hand by stringing together a combo and finishing it.
10. Be Familiar With Your Hero’s Specials
All the heroes in this game have their own combos and specials, and while we wouldn’t insist that you learn everybody’s special moves, you should at least know those of the heroes who are part of your team, or about to become part of it. Then again, you may also want to do some research on specials, as enemies can fire them off as well. Either way, they can be blocked (or you can block an enemy’s specials) if you’re quick enough to do so.
Additionally, it’s good practice to use your specials whenever you could. Remember that you lose your special meters following the conclusion of a fight; this should give you enough incentive to use your specials while in a fight. Using them, as you may have inferred, is an easier way to quickly polish off those bad guys. Why go for a normal attack when your specials could be the difference-maker your team needs?
11. How To Conserve Your HP And Potions
If you play the game on quest mode, you should always remember that your hero’s HP will be carried over to the succeeding bad guy prior to your completing the chain of quest. Keeping this in mind, you should take a defensive stance if your HP is running low; save the explosive offense for when you’ve got more than enough HP. And if your hero does die while in the middle of a battle, you can use other heroes to fight them again, as their HP is already lower thanks to the previous hero’s, er…heroics.
Talking about potions, it’s more affordable to use them on injured heroes as opposed to reviving them, which is possible in this game. But you should ideally use them when you’re working on more difficult quests such as class quests or special event quests where you can potentially unlock a catalyst. Potions can help your heroes and help restore them to health, but if it isn’t necessary to use them, then don’t.
12. Farm For ISO-8
Farming, or grinding for ISO-8 is a sound strategy and one that may require a more comprehensive strategy guide, but the bottom line is that you want to do this when playing Marvel Contest of Champions. ISO-8, after all, is required when leveling up your heroes, so if you’re running low on it, then go farm.