Mortal Kombat is one of the biggest names in video game history. Infamous in its heyday for incredibly detailed and bloody displays of violence, Mortal Kombat was one of, if not the game that spearheaded the creation of the ESRB. And despite the warnings of moral authorities, players (myself included) would be drawn not only to the gory spectacle that Mortal Kombat offered but also to its pulse-pounding, nail-biting gameplay that dared to go where no other game before had, because Mortal Kombat was a deadly game where losing a match could cost your fighter their life.
Today, Mortal Kombat is still going strong with numerous releases. Of course, NetherRealm Studios has evolved with the times, and even those of us whose fighting game reflexes are dulled (or would rather stick to mobile) can get in on the action via Mortal Kombat: Onslaught.
Mortal Kombat: Onslaught is a game where you follow the stories of several of the franchise’s most popular characters as they wander the Netherrealms, each with their own motivations and goals. Along the way, you’ll gather powerful allies, find and refine rare and powerful artifacts, and have a literal bloody good time doing it. Mortal Kombat: Onslaught is available on both the Google Play Store and the App Store.
Despite its Mortal Kombat branding, Mortal Kombat: Onslaught has a lot in common with auto-battler character collection RPGs such as Blue Archive or Dragonheir: Silent Gods, and veteran players will easily be able to intuit the game’s mechanics. If, however, you’re completely new to the genre or just want a heads-up on what the game has to offer, you’ve come to the right place.
In this comprehensive Mortal Kombat: Onslaught beginner’s guide, we’ll be going over:
- Learning to read your characters.
- How to make your fighters stronger.
- Getting the resources you need to grow your Kollection.
- Mastering combat and its complexities.
- The game’s gacha system.
Testing Might
The first step to doing better in any RPG is to learn how to evaluate your characters. I’ll be walking you through the basics of each fighter – that way, you’ll be able to read them on your own and find out how to improve them.
Quick Tips:
- Mortal Kombat: Onslaught has a very detailed stat system. Make sure you’re familiar with the terms!
- Fighters have rarity: 3-stars are common, 4-stars are uncommon, 5-stars are rare. In general, the rarer a fighter, the better it will perform.
- Each fighter has an Affinity (element). The weakness cycle goes Body -> Spirit -> Mind -> Body; Body is strong against Spirit; Spirit is strong against Mind.
- Take note that attacking an Affinity you’re weak against also causes that fighter to deal less damage.
- Each hero belongs to a class. Classes are a quick and easy way to distinguish fighters by combat role.
- Each fighter has access to multiple abilities that they’ll use in a fight.
- Abilities are divided into passive, automatic, and special abilities. Special abilities are akin to ultimates and must be unleashed manually.
- Each fighter has access to seven gear slots, of which the relic is the most important. Don’t neglect the other slots though as the raw stat boosts can quickly add up.
Fighter Stats
Numbers! Every fighter in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught has their abilities measured by numbers. Take note that the stat system of Mortal Kombat: Onslaught is quite detailed, so you’ll need to constantly keep stat names in mind. You can also refer to the in-game guide or this list.
The stats in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught are:
- Attack – how much damage the fighter does. Affects both physical and magical might.
- Defense – general damage mitigation. The percent of damage Defense reduces is indicated in a parenthesis.
- Health – how much damage your fighter can take before they die.
- Initiative – determines who acts first in a melee fight. Initiative is checked whenever a new fight is started.
- Block – determines the chance of blocking melee hits. Blocked attacks only deal 75% of their damage.
- Dodge – determines the chance of dodging ranged hits. Dodged attacks do no damage.
- Accuracy – determines the hit rate of melee and ranged attacks. Accuracy is measured against a foe’s Block and Dodge for melee and ranged attacks, respectively.
- Critical Chance – the percent-based chance that an attack will do extra damage…
- Critical Damage – …and the multiplier of a critical hit. 150% Critical Damage means that a critical hit does 50% more damage (for example, an attack did 100 damage and crit, so we do 100 * 150% = 150).
- Physical Resistance – damage resistance only against physical attacks, whether melee or ranged.
- Magical Resistance – damage resistance only against magical attacks, whether melee or ranged.
- Mastery – affects the chance of skill effects, such as debuffs.
- Tenacity – affects the chance of resisting skill effects. Measured against an enemy’s Mastery if they attempt to inflict an effect.
- Haste – passively reduces cooldown on abilities.
Finally, there’s Threat, a rough number that estimates a fighter’s combat power based on their raw stats and gear. Remember that this is an approximation – high Threat doesn’t mean a fighter is unstoppable!
Fighter Rarity
Each fighter in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught has a rarity, determined by the number of stars below their name.
Common heroes have 3 stars, uncommon ones have 4 stars, and rare heroes have 5 stars. In general, the rarer a fighter, the better they are; do note that this isn’t always the case though!
Fighter Affinity
Fighters in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught have what’s called an Affinity. In essence, this is their element and determines who they’re strong against and who they’re weak against.
The three affinities in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught are Body, Spirit, and Mind. The weakness cycle is Body is strong against Spirit, Spirit is strong against Mind, and Mind is strong against Body. This also works in the reverse; Body fighters do less damage against Mind characters.
The bonuses when attacking an Affinity you’re strong against are:
- +15% Crit Chance, +30% Crit Damage, +15% Mastery, and +20% Damage.
Conversely, the penalties for attacking an Affinity you’re weak to are the reverse:
- -15% Crit Chance, -30% Crit Damage, -50% Mastery, and -20% Damage.
As you can see, the penalty to Mastery is gigantic, so don’t expect to land debuffs or secondary effects on enemies your fighters are weak to!
Fighter Classes
Each fighter also belongs to a class, which allows you to quickly identify what their role in battle is. No one is good at everything, and a well-balanced mix of classes will allow you to overcome even the fiercest foes.
The roles in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught are as follows:
- Warriors are vanilla melee brawlers. While they don’t particularly excel in any field, Warriors have a good blend of attack and defense, making them a solid pick for any team.
- Attackers are the ranged counterpart of Warriors. Attackers pack greater offensive prowess than Warriors but are squishier and require assistance from their bulkier friends to really get going.
- Assassins are highly mobile melee fighters that flit from target to target. While they shine offensively, they’re frail for melee combatants.
- Snipers are Attackers brought to their logical conclusion – a ton of ranged attack power, but virtually non-existent defense.
- Defenders take the opposite approach from Assassins. Where Assassins excel in violence, Defenders prefer to withstand attacks from their foes while engaging them in melee. Defenders will rarely be able to kill on their own, but their top-notch Health and Defense ensure that they’ll be the last fighter standing.
- Supports are defensive ranged fighters who help their team by providing healing, buffs, and debuffs.
Abilities
Each fighter has access to numerous skills that they can bring to bear against their foes. Abilities are divided into passive, auto, and special abilities. Note that lower-rarity fighters usually have fewer abilities than rarer ones.
Passive abilities are always active. These usually provide their owner with minor buffs or augments that help them in combat. They’re not flashy, but they’re always nice to have.
Auto abilities, as their name suggests, are executed automatically whenever they’re off cooldown. They can vary wildly depending on the fighter in question. Sometimes they do damage, sometimes they displace, sometimes they heal. Always read up on these!
Special abilities serve as a fighter’s ultimate ability. These must be manually activated (and optionally aimed) by you. Well-placed and well-timed special abilities can turn the tide of battle in an instant, so never neglect these!
Relics and Gear
Each fighter also has equipment space for a total of seven pieces of equipment – one relic and six pieces of gear.
Of all these pieces of equipment, the relic is the most important, though don’t neglect the raw stat boosts that filling all the slots gives you.
Refining Brutality
So now you’ve got Scorpion, a handful of angry ghosts, and hopefully a 5-star fighter. The next step is to hone your deadly art. Just as a dull blade will pierce no flesh, an unrefined fighter will be useless on the battlefield. Here’s a quick breakdown of the various ways to strengthen your Kollection.
Quick Tips:
- The fastest way to strengthen a fighter is by leveling them up. This costs Fighter XP and Koins.
- Fighters have different level caps based on their rarity.
- Pieces of gear can be upgraded to improve their performance.
- Gear has rarity. The rarer a piece of equipment, the better its stats.
- Gear belongs to different sets. If you equip a certain number of equipment items from a set, it triggers a powerful set bonus.
- Relics are unique equipment that bestow powerful bonuses.
- Like equipment, Relics can be upgraded by feeding them other Relics. Relics also need to have their limits broken to raise their level cap.
- Rarer Relics not only offer better stats but also allow certain characters to use their Fatalities to finish off the last foe in a stage.
- You can improve skill levels to raise a fighter’s effectiveness. The higher a skill’s level, the rarer the tomes you need to level it up.
- I strongly suggest that you conserve your tomes for the skills of the characters you use the most.
- Kombos are activated when you pull duplicates of a character. Each character has six Kombo levels but note that only named characters have Kombos.
- Pulling duplicates of a character also grants you Affinity Souls based on that character’s Affinity. These souls can be used to Soul Bind a character, which will improve its rarity and thus its level cap.
Leveling Up
Leveling up a fighter is the fastest way of boosting their combat power. Each level grants a slight increase to their stats, but will primarily raise Health, Attack, and Defense – all vital stats for any character.
Leveling up is easy, too. All you need to do is open a fighter’s info page, select “Level Up”, then choose how many levels you want to give them. This will cost both Fighter XP and Koins, with higher levels requiring more resources.
While levels probably won’t grant you the ultraviolence levels of power you crave, they still serve as a solid foundation for any hero to build on. However, note that there are level caps in play, which are dependent on a character’s rarity.
Gear
As I mentioned in the previous section, don’t underestimate the raw stats that a full set of gear can give you. Crappy they may be, but free stats are still free stats.
There are a few intricacies about the gear system you should know – first off, gear can be upgraded to increase its stat boosts. To increase a piece of gear’s level, you’ll need to sacrifice other equipment.
The second is gear rarity. The rarer a piece of gear, the better it is – both upgraded and raw. At the start of the game, don’t break your back trying to grind for super rare gear. Instead, just focus on getting all your favorite fighters’ slots filled. Gear rarities in ascending order are Common (gray), Uncommon (green), Rare (blue), Epic (purple), and Legendary (orange).
Thirdly, almost every piece of gear belongs to a set. Equipping a number of items from the same set activates a passive bonus. Try to complete set bonuses whenever possible as the extra stats are well worth the effort.
Finally, it costs Koins to unequip items. Yes, you heard that right.
Relics
Relics are incredibly potent pieces of gear that have their own window in a character’s info panels. This is due to the massive benefits each Relic bestows on its wearer.
Like regular gear, Relics can be upgraded by feeding them other Relics. However, Relics can also be subjected to a limit break which raises said Relic’s fusion level and thus its maximum level. To limit break a Relic, you’ll either need to sacrifice duplicates of that Relic (so good luck with high-rarity Relics) or special items. Because of the difficulty of this, try to save your special limit breaking items exclusively for top-tier Relics!
Relics are also exclusive, meaning that not every fighter can equip every Relic. While common Relics are usually fine for everyone, higher-tier ones can only be given to a select few fighters.
Finally, Relics are the source of the game’s Fatalities. When certain Relics are equipped to certain characters, they’ll gain access to their Fatality, a gory finisher to cap off the battle. When the last foe falls, you’ll hear the iconic “Finish Him/Her” line, and you can select any of your characters that have a Fatality ready.
Improve Your Abilities
Another way of getting stronger is bumping up the numbers of your skills.
Doing this is simple – just tap on the skill you want to level up, then pay both Koins and tomes. However, note that acquiring tomes isn’t as easy as it may first seem, and that the higher the level of the skill, the higher the tier of tomes you’ll need to sacrifice. Play smart and only level the most-used skills of your favorite characters to conserve your resources.
Kombos
Kombos are very similar to the Constellation/Eidolon system in Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. Essentially, each time you pull a duplicate of a fighter you already have, you can sacrifice said duplicate to activate one Kombo level for that character. This is an automatic process, so you don’t need to worry about untriggered Kombos.
While most Kombo levels grant a minor stat boost, some will also change how a character’s skills work by giving them bonuses or changing said skill’s behavior. In general, the higher a character’s initial rarity, the better their Kombo payoff.
Note that only named characters have Kombos. Mooks like your Spirit army at the start don’t get Kombos.
Soul Binding
Soul Binding is a mechanic where you can raise a character’s rarity, or rather, star rating. Whenever you pull a duplicate of a character, you not only raise said character’s Kombo level, but you also get an Affinity Soul based on that character’s Affinity. These souls can be fed to characters that share that Affinity (Body Affinity Souls can only be fed to Body characters, for example) which raises their Soul Essence level. Fill it up all the way and the character will gain a new star, improving their rarity and thus their level cap!
Note that while raising rarity via Soul Binding does increase a character’s level cap, it does nothing for their Kombos.
Raking in the Kurrency
All this strength isn’t free, though. Every strengthening method will cost you, and so it’s in your best interest to learn where to get the different kinds of currencies and refinement materials you’ll need to keep your fighters at their best. To do that, we need to explore where and how to get freebies as well as the other game modes that Mortal Kombat: Onslaught offers.
Quick Tips:
- I’ve included a quick reference sheet if you just need to find out where to get more of a particular item.
- Story mode stages have 3 stars. Complete each objective to get the most rewards out of each level.
- There’s no point in replaying Story stages unless it’s to earn stars that you missed.
- PVP is done asynchronously via the Arena. Victory earns you points; losing costs you points. The higher your position in the ladder at the end of a season, the bigger your final reward.
- You earn Arena Medals whether you win or lose in PVP. These can be used to buy some nifty items such as gear, tomes, and Relics!
- The Chasm is a daily dungeon with increasingly difficult battles and better rewards.
- The Chasm is farmable, but you can only repeat battles 5 times per day.
- Boss Towers are unlocked at account level 8. These give out a massive amount of resources but require Tower Energy to climb.
- Boss Towers allow you to sweep any floor that you’ve earned 3 stars on.
- Do your quests for a bunch of free resources and, most importantly, some free weekly pulls.
- The Gong of Prosperity becomes fully charged every 12 hours. These are essentially AFK gains; the further along you are in story mode, the more materials ringing the gong can yield.
Quick Reference Sheet
If you don’t need a rundown of the various ways to earn extra currency and just need to know where to get specific materials, here’s a reference sheet.
| Material | Where Do I Get More of It? |
| Koins | Clearing stages, Boss Tower, Chasm, completing quests, Gong of Prosperity, Arena Shop, and a lot more. Most everything earns you coins. |
| Fighter XP | Clearing stages, completing quests, Gong of Prosperity, Arena Shop. Like Koins, it’s hard to pinpoint things that don’t give you Fighter XP. |
| Gear | Quests, Chasm, Gong of Prosperity, Arena Shop. Sometimes comes as a reward for reaching certain star ranks in stages. |
| Relics | Roll in the gacha. The Arena Shop also offers rare Relics, and the regular store offers Rare and Epic relics for a large sum of Krystals – check the “Rewards” section. |
| Tomes | Quests, Chasm, Gong of Prosperity, Arena Shop, Boss Tower. Clearing Story stages with 2 stars, sometimes. |
| Affinity Souls | Rolling duplicates of characters. |
| Krystals | Quests and achievements – for achievements, it’s usually a one-time thing. Clearing Story stages with 3 stars. |
Clear Marks
As you continue pushing through story mode, you may notice shuriken appearing above the stage clear screen.
These shuriken, clear marks, or stars – I’ll just use the word “stars” – indicate how well you did in that specific battle. Each battle in single-player mode has 3 objectives, and for each objective that you complete, you earn one star. If you earn all 3 stars in a stage, you’ll get the maximum number of rewards possible.
Note that these objectives can be previewed before you begin a stage and that there’s no point in replaying stages unless it’s to earn stars you missed.
PvP
Mortal Kombat is a series about fighting other players, and Mortal Kombat: Onslaught has plenty of that via its PvP system.
PVP in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught is done asynchronously via the Arena. In the Arena, you can pick fights with other players who are (roughly) on the same ladder level as you. Victory nets you some ladder points while losing costs you some points (and pride) – the prospective changes to your score can be seen at the bottom of each player’s banner. The higher your position on the ladder at the end of a PVP season, the bigger your payout.
To fight another player in the Arena, you’ll need to spend Arena Scrolls, which have a cap of five and regenerate every hour. Whenever you look for opponents, you’ll be given a set of 5 random players. If you don’t like your prospects, you can always refresh your opponents. Refreshing is free with a 10-minute cooldown; alternatively, you can pay some Krystals to instantly refresh your opponent list.
Note that you also need to set a defensive team to participate in PVP, which other players will fight when they challenge you. Don’t worry, you still earn stuff from defensive battles.
Whether you win or lose a PVP match, you’ll earn some Arena Medals. This currency is very valuable as it can be traded in the Arena Shop for a lot of neat stuff, such as gear, tomes, Koins, Fighter and Relic Exp, and even rare Relics!
The Chasm
We see a giant hole in the ground, and what do we do? We jump in, of course.
The Chasm is a series of increasingly difficult battles against preset teams, almost exactly like Story mode. Unlike Story mode, the Chasm gives out a lot more rewards, and the deeper you go, the better the goodies get. Note that the Chasm is farmable – unlike Story mode stages, you can repeat Chasm battles you’ve already cleared (up to 5 repeats per day) and yes, you’ll still get rewards for clearing stages you’ve already finished!
Just like Story mode, Chasm stages have 3 stars per level; the more stars you earn, the better your rewards. As always, check the requirements for each level – you don’t want to miss out on any of the prizes.
Boss Towers
Boss Towers are the greatest PvE challenge that Mortal Kombat: Onslaught has to offer.
As the name might suggest, Boss Tower mode involves climbing a tower and felling several powerful bosses from the Mortal Kombat franchise. The higher you climb, the mightier the bosses become, but the greater the rewards. Just like the Chasm, the Boss Tower can be replayed to instantly claim rewards – you’ll need to 3-star a level to be able to sweep it. Don’t forget to check the requirements!
There are three things you need to know, however. Firstly, some Boss Towers are only open at certain times. These Boss Towers also tend to have daily restrictions on how many times you can enter. Secondly, each Boss Tower gives out specific types of resources; Liu Kang’s Boss Tower, for instance, yields a ton of Koins while Goro’s Boss Tower drops arm, leg, and head gear. Thirdly, challenging a floor in Boss Tower mode consumes some Tower Energy. Tower Energy regenerates on its own over time, though you can also buy refills with Arena Medals or Krystals.
Quests and Achievements
Mortal Kombat: Onslaught rewards you for regular activity via the quest and achievements system.
By completing your regular quests, you’ll ensure that you have a steady stream of useful materials for fortifying your Kollection and training up your fighters. Sure, Koins, Fighter XP, and random (crappy) gear aren’t exciting, but you’ll need a lot of the stuff.
Weeklies, however, are a different matter. Finishing 4 weekly objectives will grant you 40 Skull Orbs, which translates to 40 free pulls (on the general banner). As you’ll always need more Relics for Relic EXP or limit breaking and fighters for Affinity Souls, you definitely don’t want to miss clearing at least 4 weekly quests.
Finally, achievements are commemorative milestones that reward you for reaching certain goals in your journey. Each achievement has multiple stages, meaning the same objective can be completed multiple times – though each time, it’ll be harder.
To view your quests and claim your rewards, simply tap on “Quests” on the lower part of the main menu.
The Gong of Prosperity
Your fighters don’t just sit around and do nothing when you’re away. Even while you’re not actively playing Mortal Kombat: Onslaught, they’ll continue to hone themselves and possibly beat up random guys on the street, earning Gong of Prosperity rewards.
The Gong of Prosperity reaches its maximum yields every 12 hours, which will score you a generous amount of not just Fighter XP and Koins, but other rewards as well, such as tomes for leveling up skills, equipment, and more. If you’re on a tight schedule and don’t have much time to play, you can ring the gong earlier, though there’s a 5-minute interval between claiming gong rewards.
As this is technically Mortal Kombat: Onslaught’s AFK gains system, the accumulation and drop rate of items from the Gong of Prosperity is tied to your story mode progression. Push as far as you can to get even greater rewards, and don’t forget to ring that gong!
Konquering Kombat
Mortal Kombat is known for its brutal and visceral (literally!) combat. While Mortal Kombat: Onslaught simplifies fights by turning the outworld tournament and other skirmishes into automated brawls, learning how to turn these fights to your favor will save your fighters from a bloody end and ensure that you’ll live to see another day. Here are all the basics you need to know to hopefully come out on top.
Quick Tips:
- Fights are done in real time. Your fighters will run from left to right, engaging enemy waves until the stage is cleared.
- Melee fighters will compare Initiative when engaging each other; this determines who attacks first. Ranged characters don’t need to roll Initiative.
- Melee attacks can be warded with Block, while ranged attacks can be negated with Dodge.
- You can speed up combat and automate skill use by tapping on the upper left of the screen.
- Fighters automatically use their auto abilities when off cooldown.
- Once a character’s special ability is ready, their portrait will be highlighted. You can tap and drag to aim their special ability, or double tap on their portrait if you don’t care about aiming.
- You can also just opt to save your fighters’ special abilities for the next wave.
- Judicious use of special abilities is often the key to winning a fight.
- It’s important to have a good formation. Logically, you’ll want your Defenders and Warriors in front and your squishier damage dealers at the back.
- You can preview the enemy team no matter what mode you’re playing. Tap on their fighters to see what they can do and prepare your countermeasures.
Kombat 101
By now, you’ve probably fought your fair share of fights, but let’s go over the basics just in case.
Battles in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught are automated. Your guys will run from the left to the right of the screen, clearing enemy waves until none are left. You can have 4 fighters on the field at once, while the enemy has a wave deployment system.
Melee and ranged fighters act very differently. Ranged fighters simply attack whenever their attacks are off cooldown. Melee fighters, on the other hand, roll for Initiative when engaging another melee fighter. Whoever wins gets to attack first, and the fighters will take turns engaging combos until one of them drops unconscious or dead.
Avoiding damage is done differently depending on whether an incoming attack is melee or ranged. Melee attacks must surpass the target’s Block; blocked attacks only deal 75% of their damage. Ranged attacks, on the other hand, can be completely negated with Dodge. Don’t be surprised if you see shield and “miss” icons flying out of the battlefield.
If you want to go completely hands-off in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught, you’ll be happy to know that you can activate double speed and automatic special ability usage – just check the upper left of the screen.
Special Abilities
As your fighters brawl, they’ll eventually unleash their skills. Remember that there are three ability types – passive, automatic, and special. While you don’t need to do anything for passive and automatic abilities, special abilities are, well, special.
Whenever a fighter’s special ability is ready to be unleashed, their portrait on the lower right of the screen will light up. At that point, you can tap and hold the skill icon to manually aim it or double tap their portrait if you don’t care about aiming. You can also opt to just save the special ability for the next round.
Remember: special abilities are very powerful and can change the flow of combat on their own. Be sure to read up on the special abilities of your team so you can maximize their potential and swing fights in your favor!
Form Up!
While there’s little you can do to influence a battle that’s already underway (sans timing your special abilities), your initial formation is a huge factor in whether things will go smoothly or if you’re in for a slugfest.
You have two columns with 3 slots each: 6 slots in which to place your guys. This is where classes come into play. Remember – Warriors and Defenders are bulky frontliners that should ideally wade into battle first, while your squishier Assassins, Attackers, and Snipers should be on the backline.
However…
Read Up on Your Foes
…sometimes, things don’t work out as expected. Maybe your enemy is running a team of fighters that snipe the backrow. Maybe they’re just going all-out assault in their waves to the point that even your tough frontliners can’t keep up. That’s where knowledge comes in.
Before a battle starts, you can tap on any of your opponent’s fighters to read up on their stats, equipment, and most importantly, their abilities. If you find yourself losing fights that you expected to win, do some investigating; sniff out your enemy’s kit and find a weakness in their strategy!
Mastering The Gacha
Finally, let’s talk about Mortal Kombat: Onslaught’s many banners, as well as the premium currencies you’ll need to pull on each banner. You’ll need every advantage you can get if you plan to defeat the vile forces attempting to subjugate Earthrealm and knowing how to navigate Mortal Kombat: Onslaught’s gacha might just grant you the edge you need.
Quick Tips:
- Don’t forget about your daily free summon!
- There are multiple permanent banners. These are the Apprentice Summon, Fighter Summon, and Relic Summon. All of these use Green Skull Orbs.
- The limited banner uses Blue Master Orbs as currency. Hard pity is at 80 pulls.
- You can buy both of these orbs with Krystals. Be sure you’re buying the correct kind of currency for the banner you want to pull on as they’re not interchangeable.
Daily Free Summon?!
I’ll start this section by saying yes, there is a daily free summon. It refreshes every 24 hours, so you might eventually get something good. As you need a ton of Relics and Affinity souls anyway, be sure to pull on it every day.
Note that the free daily pull is limited to 4* characters and Rare Relics as the highest rarity on both tables; you can’t get 5* heroes nor Epic Relics from the free daily.
Skull Orb Banners
Next are the permanent banners. These are the Apprentice Summon, Fighter Summon, and Relic Summon. All of these are always available for players, and they all take Green Skull Orbs as payment.
You’ll notice that each of these banners costs a different amount of Skull Orbs. That’s because they yield different things:
- The Apprentice Summon costs 10 Skull Orbs per pull and has a 50.25% chance of a fighter and a 49.75% chance of a relic. The odds of pulling 5/4/3* characters on this banner are 0.25%/5%/45%, respectively, while the odds of pulling Epic/Rare/Uncommon/Common Relics are 0.25%/1.5%/8%/40%, respectively.
- The Fighter Summon costs 25 Skull Orbs per pull and is guaranteed to pull a fighter. The odds of pulling a 5/4/3* character on this banner are 1.5%/15%/83.5%, respectively.
- The Relic Summon costs 20 Skull Orbs per pull and is guaranteed to pull a Relic. The odds of pulling an Epic/Rare/Uncommon/Common Relic are 1.5%/7.5%/25%/66%, respectively.
As you can infer from this data, the Apprentice Summon is cheap, but will likely result in a ton of low-rarity duplicates. It’s up to you whether you want these dupes (as EXP materials or as Affinity Souls) or would rather gamble on the other, definite banners.
The Limited Banner
There’s also a limited banner in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught. Unlike the other banners, this one uses Blue Master Orbs, which are twice as expensive as Skull Orbs if you’re buying them with Krystals. Be sure to pick up the correct currency when shopping for gacha pulls.
As of writing (October 2023), Mortal Kombat: Onslaught has barely been out for a week, so I would say it’s unsafe to assume anything about limited banners. However, one thing we do know for sure is that you hit hard pity at 80 pulls on the banner – you’ll get a copy of the featured banner character after 80 pulls – though whether that constitutes the 80th pull or is from an outside source is something still in the air.
Let The Onslaught Begin!
All our paths lead to the same place, though we know it not. However, the road to realizing our goals and dreams will be painful and deadly – in other words, perfect. Just the way we like it.
That concludes my beginner’s guide to Mortal Kombat: Onslaught, and I hope that I was able to give you some basic pointers on how to progress and get stronger, thus setting the stage for your future conquests. If you have any suggestions on how to improve this beginner’s guide or would like to share some of your personal tips and tricks, make yourself heard in the comment area below!