Magneto Strategy

Source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Magneto/Hero

We all know Magneto is a badass villain and a powerful adversary at Marvel: Avenger's Alliance PVP. All of his relevant stats are between above-average and excellent. With some Iso-8 Crystal investment you can transform Magneto into a PVP sweeper, given the right team combination.

This discussion will be rather simple since Magneto in its own right is a powerful adversary. We will just focus on optimization for him to work optimally at PVP.

Let's first make a brief review of Magneto's awesome passive abilities.

Mental Shield negates any kind of psychic attack. Period. This means Emma Frost won't be doing much against him, besides War Diamond.

Flying is always welcome to evade massive ground attacks from Captain Britain and such.

Master of Magnetism is the real star here. This passive does a number of different things. The most notable and useful is that it automatically applies Magnetized to any metallic target. This means robots, armors, Wolverine and most Agents will be Magnetized. This passive ability is so good that even if Magnetized is removed from a metallic target, Magneto will automatically refresh it. Magnetized is incredibly useful because it won't allow targets to evade or critically hit. This is immensely important in PVP, where the metagame has shifted from damage-over-time-effects to critical-hit-sweeps. Master of Magnetism also enables Magneto to randomly preemptively counterattack any Magnetized target for massive critical damage. Master of Magnetism also prevents Magneto from being Magnetized by opposing Rescues or Magnetos and gives him the ability to critically hit any magnetized target. Note that Rescue won't negate Magneto's critical hits since he is immune to Magnetized.

It is easy to assume that Magneto's most important ability is to Magnetize targets and critical-hit them for as long as they remain so. To make him even more interesting, his moveset takes advantage of his ability to add even more adverse effects, like Stun, and deal even more damage.

Source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Magneto/Hero

We will start with Magnetic Shield, since it is just a supportive move, more than a part of the core strategy for Magneto. Magnetic Shield is similar to the gadget Magnetic Field Generator. It envelopes your party in a protective Magnetic Shield that grants Magnetic Acceleration upon removal, which means your Agent or hero will be able to take an additional action that turn. Pretty sweet ability that's very situational. A momentum builder and life-saver most of the times.

Magneto's other three moves are attacks that are guaranteed to critically hit when the target is Magnetized. Magneto is so generous that one of his useful passives, Master of Magnetism, already inflicts Magnetized on any metallic target. Magneto's first attack, Electromagnetic Blast, also Magnetizes the target. This, however, can be a little time consuming for non-metallic targets. With the popularity of Rescue's Status Reset ability and Scroll of Angolob, Magnetized won't stick for long on non-metal targets. This can severely hinder Magneto's ability to sweep at PVP.

The answer to this problem is fighting fire with fire. Magneto's best teammate would be Rescue because she will Magnetize ANY target, be it metallic or not, for as long as she is defending with her Magnetic Attraction ability.

With Rescue by Magneto's side, the enemy team will almost always be Magnetized. Magneto will be able to critically hit with his attacks. When the whole enemy team is Magnetized, you just need to repeatedly volley with Graviton Well, a powerful area attack that will critically hit any Magnetized target. With this Magneto will be able to quickly decimate opposition.

If you are presented with a more complicated situation, like facing an opposing Magneto or a Defender, you may want to use instead Electromagnetic Blast. This single-target attack does three things: 1) Magnetize the target, even if it is non-metallic, 2) critically hit any magnetized target and 3) randomly deal preemptive damage against Magnetized targets with Reverse Polarity. This is the best way to micro-manage pesky opposing heroes that won't let Graviton Well work properly.

Team Layout

Agent (Scrapper Trench Coat)

Since Rescue is probably the most versatile support hero in the game and Magneto is a powerful sweeper by itself, your hero equipment may be more flexible and varied. I won't recommend any specific item because Rescue and Magneto are a pretty strong team. Just use your favorite equipment on the Agent.

Magneto (Tactician)       Rescue (Tactician)

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The only real problem with this team is that you have two Tacticians in it. Any experienced PVP competitor knows that having repeated classes in your team is usually a bad idea. Thats why you need to use a Scrapper uniform on your Agent to counter the advantage that any Infiltrator may have against your two Tacticians. Also, since Rescue's Flyby attack can negate counterattacks on the target and Magnetized won't allow enemy critical hits, you may not need to worry to much about Infiltrators raping your strategy. For Bruisers gaining enraged on your Scrapper, just focus your assault on it first. If there is more than one, Protect with Rescue, remove the Enraged stacks with Status Reset and, if things go awry, just let them kill your agent so that they gain any more class bonuses.

There you have it.
Cheers!

Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat) Strategy

Source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Kitty_Pryde

Kitty Pryde, in its own right, is a mediocre Marvel: Avengers Alliance character. Her attacks are usually weak and her passive ability, which summons her pet dragon Lockheed to make an average attack, has a ratter low chance of triggering. She, however, has a very nasty combination that you can exploit on defensive teams. This will be the focus of this discussion.

Lets first take a look at her move set:

Source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Kitty_Pryde

The most important ability on Kitty Pryde is Phased. This renders Kitty incorporeal, which means she can always evade any non-psychic attack for the duration of the buff, which is two turns. Another advantage of Phased is that it makes Kitty's following physical attack a lot more powerful, which kind-of compensates for her very low attack power. You can normally get the Phased buff by attacking with her Phased Attack, but her alternate costume, Shadowcat Kitty Pryde has an additional passive ability that automatically bestows Phased on her at the beginning of every battle.

Just like many other heroes in the game, you need to buy the alternate costume, Shadowcat Kitty Pryde, to make the best out of her hidden potential. Auto-Phased menas that Kitty won't take any damage since the very beginning of every battle until the buff is used-up by one of her physical attacks or simple removed after two turns. You need to know that after Phased is removed there will be a mandatory cooldown before she can become Phased again with her Phased Attack. There is another hero that has a similar attack to Kitty Pryde: Vision.

Vision, however, doesn't get the Phased buff since the beginning of the battle, like Shadowcat Kitty Pryde does. This is very crucial for the strategy we are trying to build, so we can have him as a secondary, less reliable option.

As we can see from her move set, Kitty Pryde has a very linear and predictable engine. She becomes Phased and her next attack should be Call Lockheed. This attack doesn't remove Phased since Kitty Pryde is not doing any actual physical attack. Call Lockheed also applies burning to the target and has a decent attack power that becomes ratter mediocre when combined with Kitty's attack stats. After that, you want to use Sneak Attack on one of the enemy heroes, specially on a Tactician. Sneak Attack is the only real damage dealer for Kitty Pryde. It benefits from two power boosts: one from Phased and one from Phased Advantage, which enables Sneak Attack to deal a lot more damage when Kitty Pryde is Phased. Sneak Attack is so powerful that it has the potential to one-hit K.O. an average enemy. Sneak Attack will, of course, remove the Phased buff, so you want to use it just before Phased wears off.

Strategy: Phased + Protect

Why do we insist on giving Kitty Pryde a chance as a Marvel: Avengers Alliance playable hero? If you play PVP you probably came upon some Phoenix + Kitty Pryde teams. These teams rely on making a Phased Kitty Pryde an invulnerable tank with Phoenix's Mind Link ability.

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Thats right. Phoenix's Mind Link gives the Protect buff to one of your heroes. If you make a Phased Kitty Pryde to Protect your team, you will end up with a tank that will evade EVERY single attack but Psychic attacks.

It is preferable to use the White Crown Phoenix Costume over Classic Phoenix or Phoenix Five Phoenix because the White Crown costume will periodically add the Death and Rebirth buff to your entire party. This means that your heroes will be revived after dying for the first time, and after every other refreshing of the buff. Now lets stop here for a second and think about how this makes an ideal combination with Shadowcat Kitty Pryde's Phased buff.

Although Kitty Pryde will probably die instantly after a single attack, she will not do so until her Phased buff is consumed. However, with White Crown Phoenix she will be revived with 25% of her original health because of the Death and Rebirth buff. After that, you can use Phenix's Phoenix Fire area attack to deal decent damage, apply Soulfire to the entire enemy party and, most importantly, refresh the Death and Rebirth buff.

If you are careful on your use of Phoenix Fire, you can revive Kitty Pryde, refresh her Phased buff with Phased Attack after the mandatory cooldown, and Protect again with Mind Link, making her again and invulnerable tank.

In the meantime, you can pummel with a strong Agent and stun with Phoenix's Telekinesis attack. Also, if you are using an Infiltrator Kitty Pryde, her counter attack is not Phased Attack, but actually Shadow Kick, which deals great damage when Phased and inflicts Exposed on the target, which removes its defense stat by 25%.

NOTE that Phased will not be removed by a counterattack and it will benefit from the Phased attack boost.

This leads us to the following topic: Character Class.

Team Lineup

It is very important that you make use of an Infiltrator Shadowcat Kitty Pryde because she will be able to counterattack with powerful and crippling Shadow Kicks after receiving the class bonus from Tactician intervention. Also, you need your Agent to be very Powerful so you can deal massive damage while Kitty Pryde tanks and Phoenix buffs your party.

Although it might look like a good idea to use another Infiltrator in Phoenix to benefit from more counterattacks, it is usually counterproductive to repeat a class in your PVP team. In this case, a strong Scrapper like Brown Costume Wolverine would completely decimate both Phoenix and Kitty Pryde after Phased wears off because he can counterattack, Protect and get extra turns while doing so. In other words, you won't be able to refresh Death and Rebirth and Mental Link fast enough with a powerful Scrapper mashing your Infiltrator team. This is why you want a Blaster White Crown Phoenix in this team.

You want to use a Bruiser Agent because in the presence of a Scrapper they are the greatest damage dealers in the entire game. Also, since Phased Kitty Pryde will be tanking with Mind Link, you are less likely to be one-shotted by an enemy Blaster. You can use and offensive weapon set that has Warbringer Axe at its core, or you can use the Demon Set, if you have it, which literally can obliterate an entire opposing party if you protect and heal your Agent constantly with Signpost. You might want to use Sinister Scepter on the Agent to use Mind Link on him/her when Kitty Pryde is defeated or in cooldown, but the Agents damage output would be reduced considerably by using up two precious weapon slots to place Sinister Scepter and a weapon that enables you to attack without removing Phased. This is why we want to stick with either Warbringer Axe and power ups or the Demon Set.

Agent: Bruiser Trench Coat (preferably the Aegis Armor)

Demon Set:

                      Fury                         Grief                        Hotshot                     Singpost

Heroes:

               

Kitty Pryde (Infiltrator Shadowcat costume)         Phoenix (Blaster White Crown costume)

Be on the lookout for Scrolls of Angolob and Rescue's Status Reset. Both remove ALL buffs on the enemy party, meaning Kitty Pryde will lose both Phased and Protect after that. These are the real threats to this team, but then again, Scroll of Angolob and Rescue do mess up and destroy most PVP strategies, anyway.

There you have a suggestion to make the best out of Kitty Pryde at Marvel: Avengers Alliance. Remember to beef her up with ISO-8 crystals that boost attack, health and defense and you should end up with an interesting attrition PVP team.

Cheers!

Thor Strategy

Source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Thor

Thor has been around since the very beginning of Marvel: Avengers Alliance. What's amazing about this character is that he is still the most potent sweeper in the entire game. He may not have the highest attack power among all the heroes (although it is pretty high already), but he does have the most powerful area attack in the entire game: Summon Thunder.

Since Summon Thunder is so powerful and it has the Catastrophic property, which prevents protection, avoidance and always hits, you can build a whole strategy around this move.

Now, Thor is not a very versatile character. You will always use him in the very same fashion: Inspire Bravery, Empowering Strike, then Summon Thunder. This, however takes too many turns to setup and characters like Ghost Rider, Phoenix and Magik can negate the stacks of Might of Mjolnir with Soulfire. Basically, the Classic Thor costume is useless. You need to have the Modern Thor armor, since it begins every match already with the two stacks of Might of Mjolnir.

 

This Modern Thor costume comes in two classes: Bruiser and Blaster. I prefer Blaster since it can decimate any opposing Bruiser, which are otherwise very difficult to deal with because of their high Heath and Defense stats. You may be able to attain ridiculously high Attack power with an Enraged Bruiser. However, I don't recommend the Bruiser costume for two main reasons:
1) Bruiser are often One-Hit-KOed by opposing Blasters.
2) Enraged stacks can only be obtained by attacking or being attacked by an opposing Scrapper, which is kind of difficult to achieve since Scrappers are often protected by other heroes or by an Agent's Protect effect. Also, the Enraged stacks are kind of slow to obtain, and you want to use Summon Thunder as soon as Thor gets his first turn. Finally, Enraged stacks are kind of an overkill since most teams will anyway resurrect after a successful Summon Thunder attack. In other words, you don't need sky-high attack power. You just need reasonable status boost to make Summon Thunder lethal. This is why Enraged stacks are usually unnecessary.

With Modern Thor the strategy is ridiculously simple, yet incredibly powerful. You basically fire off Summon Thunder as soon as possible. If you do this, however, you will find that it does take a gigantic chunk of health off the entire enemy team, but it will not kill them. Besides high Defense stats, there is also the Deathwatch effect from Phoenix and Valkyrie and the item equivalent: Hoarfrost Mace and Odin's Staff. Said items are not that popular anymore, but Phoenix and Valkyrie are both very popular characters in PVP, so they may hinder Summon Thunder's sweeping ability.

Now, as soon as you unload your first Summon Thunder you will have to build up the two Might of Mjolnir stacks again because it is most likely that your opponent's team will still be alive. You want to do the stacks by first activating Inspire Bravery, since it also bestows Strengthened to your whole party. After it is up to you to do one of the following two things:
1) You can another Might of Mjolnir stack by making an Empowering Strike. You may do this when the opposing party still has some kind of resurrection effect. You will need to make minor attacks with your Agent and/or your other hero to "kill" your opponents and trigger their resurrection ability. After they are triggered once, they are ready to be killed again for good.
2) You can unload Summon Thunder again since even with only one stack of Might of Mjolnir the attack becomes lethal since the opposing party is already greatly weakened and Thor also has Strengthened, which arguably makes up for the second stack of Might of Mjolnir. You may unload Summon Thunder with only Might of Mjolnir stack only if the opposing party does not have some kind of resurrection effect. In that case, resort to option #1.

Summon Thunder Optimization

Since your whole strategy revolves around unloading powerful Summon Thunder area attacks as soon as possible you want to do one of two things:

1) Give Thor an additional action from another hero, like Cable, or from your Agent, so he may use Summon Thunder before an enemy gets the chance to apply Soulfire of use Scroll of Angolob to remove all of Thor's Might of Mjolnir stacks. If you use Cable as Thor's partner, you get to have two very powerful offensive heroes in your party, but then will end up with two Blasters, which is not recommended at all. Every team needs class variety so it may have better coverage of both its enemies and its very own weakness.

2) Give Thor even more Attack power boosts with your Agent or with some other hero, like Emma Frost. Those who were lucky enough to obtain the Cosmic Flame item from Magik's Special Operation can use it to both boost Thor's attack power even more and apply Soulfire to the opposing party with his next attack, which should be Summon Thunder. If you don't have the Cosmic Flame, you can use Emma Frost's Unlock Potential, which greatly increases one character's stats for a single turn. She also has the ability to weaken your enemies attack power with her area attack, Mental Trauma, which inflicts Migraine, or finish off aggressive characters that don't have any support move with Psychic Tap's Mental Anguish.

I prefer Emma Frost over Cable since her Phoenix Five costume has a very helpful passive ability: Phoenix Potential: Cosmic Power, which randomly removes any harmful status ailment and boosts your characters power. I also like her because her psychic attacks trespass shields and protective abilities. Her Mental Trauma area attack is also useful to finish off a weakened opposing party after Thor's Summon Thunder. Better yet, if he gets hit by Soulfire or Scroll of Angolob, you can change your strategy to Psychic Tap and Mental Anguish damage while Thor builds up again his Might of Mjolnir stacks. Even more, popular heroes like Wolverine and Hank Pym can remove the Protect ability from your agent (in which I will elaborate in a minute) and will leave Thor vulnerable to following attacks. In that case, you can use Unlock Potential on your Agent to restore his Protect passive ability. Finally, you want a Tactician Emma Frost in case Thor's strategy fails or gets delayed. You need to be able to put Mental Anguish in as many opponents as possible, and a Tactician can do that when there is a Blaster in your opponent's team.

Although Cable may enable Thor to fire off Summon Thunder faster, I think it is pretty clear why Emma Frost is the better teammate over Cable.

The Agent

You may have noticed that Thor is the Backbone of your strategy, so you really want to protect him at all cost. You need your Agent to fulfill the Tank's role.

I don't recommend using a Bruiser costume on the Agent since he will be tanking most attacks from the party and any Blaster can potentially kill him with only one attack. A Blaster costume is not recommendable either because Thor is already a Blaster and and having two characters in your party with the same class is not a very good idea. I recommend equipping your agent with a Scrapper Power Armor. Bruisers may get the Enraged bonus off your Agent, but Thor's Blaster class bonus will destroy it even with the two Enraged stacks since Blasters completely ignore a Bruiser's defense stat and always critically hit them. As a bonus, you get to attack Infiltrators twice.

For the Equipment you need items that give your Agent the Protect passive ability. Hoarfrost Mace if very nice for this and it combines nicely with Nanite Inductive Nailgun, which randomly creates a shield around the Agent and performs a counterattack. You may also consider the Signpost to regain any lost Health. This item is very helpful for tank Agents. The last item is up to you. I like to use Dark Sigil to ensure a critical sweep from Summon Thunder and leave residual damage to kill any surviving opponent. You also like to use Warbringer Axe for two reason's:
1) It further boosts Thor's attack power.
2) It is the only powerful attack that your Agent can make since both Hoarfrost Mace and Nanite Inductive Nailgun don't have a very high attack power.

The Team

Agent (Scrapper Power Armor)

-Hoarfrost Mace
-Nanite Inductive Nailgun
-Signpost
-Dark Sigil or Warbringer Axe or Cosmic Flame

Thor (Blaster Modern Thor)

Emma Frost (Tactician Phoenix Five)

Another particular thing that you need to do with this team in order for it to be succesful in PVP is to maximize your PVP bonuses to the Attack stat. In other words, put a Blaster alternate costume on every possible hero and level them-up to Level 12. This will increase your attack power incredibly on PVP. Of course, this is easy to say, but it actually takes an enormous amount of time and resources to make everybody a Blaster and level them up to Level 12. Still, this is the most important detail for a Thor + Emma Frost team to succeed.

Try this powerful team and tell me how it goes!
Cheers!

Psylocke Strategy

Source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Psylocke

When Psylocke was revealed as the Adamantium League reward hero of PVP Season 3 everybody was amazed at her mind-blowing abilities. But just as the Tournament Season was coming to an end, Playdom decided that they had to nerf her before anybody could use her crazy abilities in the game. There was much discussion as to how these changes affected her. Most people tried and soon left her in the dark, while other learned to abuse her secret potential.

Here I will discuss Psylocke's secret potential.

At first glace, her stats are not that amazing. Evasion is probably the most unimportant stat to grow on a character, unless we are talking about specific strategies, like Future Foundation Spiderman. Reality is that Psylocke's only Great stat is her Accuracy. Both Health and Defense are dangerously low on her and her Attack power is just average. Even her passive ability is kind of irrelevant. She randomly makes a psychic preemptive attack and always preemptively attacks when another psychic attack is coming her way (basically just Emma Frost). Indeed, she looks like she was made for the only purpose of decimating Emma Frost, since the blonde psychic was so popular back in the day. So, why a dedicated counter-character is so amazing? What other uses can we get from her?

Let's start off with her moveset:

Source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Psylocke

Psylocke is kind of a setup-support character. She does have a protective move with Kinetic Shield (and it becomes a Quick Action if you already have Mental Coordination), but she is actually an offensive supporter.

You always want to use Mental Coordination at the start of every battle and you never want to begin with Telekinetic Katana. Mental Coordination is the backbone of Psylocke's machinery. It is a setup move that gives the Mental Coordination buff to your whole team for a single turn and Psionic Shadow to Psylocke. Mental Coordination has a high chance to trigger an additional attack when another team member executes a single target attack. This means that there is a high chance of dealing multiple attacks on the same turn per each party member that has Mental Coordination. You can get an idea of how this buff works when you make an assist call during battle. Your friend's agent will make a single-target attack and there is a high probability that some of your party members with Mental Coordination will join in the attack. Of course, this won't work on PVP since you can't make assist calls during competitions.

But extra attacks are only one of the great aspects of Mental Coordination. Two of Psylocke's moves only work effectively when she has the Psionic Shadow buff, which is granted by Mental Coordination. Kinetic Shields becomes a Quick Action with Psionic Shadow (although it removes the useful buff) while Psychic Knives deals a lot of extra damage by also removing the buff. Without Psionic Shadow, Psychic Knives basically deals the same unimpressive damage as Telekinetic Katana. You can see that Psylocke's move-pool is mostly based on the Mental Coordination buff, so this is why you should make that her very first action during almost every battle.

I mentioned earlier that you don't want to make Telekinetic Katana Psylocke's first move during a battle. That's because you should always prioritize Mental Coordination for you party to be able to make extra attacks and for Psylocke to unleash her true potential. Telekinetic Katana is an attack that you should only use after making a Kinetic Shield (because you lose the Psionic Shadow buff, so you don't get any extra damage from Psychic Knives), or after using up you Psionic Shadow to deal extra damage with Psychic Knives. This all means that Telekinetic Katana is just a leftover move. If you take a closer look to Psychic Knives you can see that it deals even more extra damage when an enemy has Weak Mind. But Weak Mind is a debuff that can only be inflicted with a Telekinetic Katana attack, and if you waste a turn setting up Weak Mind with Telekinetic Katana after putting up Psionic Shadow with Mental Coordination, you will lose the extra damage from your next turn's Psychic Knives because Psionic Shadow only lasts for a single turn. This means that, unless you manage to get Psylocke an extra action after putting up Psionic Shadow on her, you won't be able to do both Telekinetic Katana and Psychic Knives during a single turn. You can of course use equipment like Quantum Jumper or the less handy Magnetic Field Generator to get that extra action, or pair her with Cable of Magneto, since they also grant extra actions to other party members. However, there is an ever better partner hero for Psylocke, and I will get to that in a moment.

You may notice that for as long as your party has Mental Coordination, any attack has a chance to trigger extra attacks from your other team member. This means that getting extra actions from devices like Quantum Jumper is really important to make the best off Psylocke's Mental Coordination since this buff lasts only for a single turn and then you have to wait one turn for cool-down. Of course, Quantum Jumper has always been a very good item to use on any team, but it becomes particularly fearsome with Psylocke's Mental Coordination.

Quicksilver Team

I have been playtesting with several teammates for Psylocke, including Magneto and Cable, but there are not very easy to coordiante with the psychic ninja. However, as I pondered on the basic mechanics of Mental Coordination I arrived to the following conclusion: extra attacks abuse Psylocke's Mental Coordination buff and Quicksilver is the only character to be able to take two single actions every turn, so, in theory, he should be great with Psylocke.

You want to get his alternate Scrapper blue costume because it gives him and additional passive called Time Displacement, which may activate a random One Mile Punch attack (Quicksilver's most powerful attack) on an enemy before they attack. Also, the Scrapper costume is better than the Generalist costume because:
1) there are a lot of Infiltrators in the metagame and Quicksilver's followup Scrapper bonus attack is Tag Team, an area attack that sets up Combo Setup, which makes his One Mile Punch even more powerful.
2) Quicksilver's primary attack, Blinding Punches, is a Stealthy attack, which means that Bruiser tanks wont be able to block it and get the Enraged bonus!

As I mentioned earlier, we want Quicksilver as Psylocke's companion because he gets to make two actions during every single turn, which increases the chance of triggering Mental Coordination.

I playtested this team and, while it did what it was supposed to do (and it looked awesome, by the way), I found that shielding buffs made their attacks useless since both Quicksilver and Psylocke have such a low attack power. The only solution to this predicament was to greatly boost their attack power with my Agent, but there are not many weapons or gadgets that give Strengthened to the party. There is, however, one piece of equipment that looks like it was made for this exact team: Warbringer's Axe:

This was a limited-time 64 Gold item, and has been recently included as a reward in the PVP daily Roulette. This piece of work is fantastic on its own since it permanently gives World War Hulk's War Frenzy bonus to your entire team! War Frenzy activates after your Agent's first action during a battle and continues to stack up to three times. This powerful buff boosts both Attack power and Accuracy by a large quantity and also removes a stack of War Frenzy during an attack to deal extra damage. This is precisely what the Psylocke + Quicksilver team wants: insane attack power boosts. Also, as an added bonus, Warbringer Axe ignores your enemie's defense stat and also penetrates shields.

As soon as I got my hands into Warbringer Axe I playtested it with the team and was amazed at how fast the opposing party was decimated!

Team Layout

Agent (Blaster)
Equipment:
-Warbringer Axe
-Quantum Jumper
-Hoarfrost Mace
-Dark Sigil or Signpost or Nanite Inductive Nailgun or Scroll of Angolob


I recommend a Blaster trench (especially the Blaster's Power Armor) because Blasters won't give bonus to opposing Tacticians after making an attack and will also obliterate any Enraged Bruiser (because of Quicksilver) with a single Warbringer Axe attack. Hoarfrost Mace is necessary because scrappers like Wolverine can destroy Psylocke with a single attack since she (and also Quicksilver) has very low Defense stats. Your Agent needs to fill the role of a tank in this team. The last item is up to you. Nanite Inductive Nailgun comboes very well with Hoarfrost Mace, Signpost will regain some health for you tanking Agent, Scroll of Angolob restores your team's capacity to fight and Dark Sigil (my personal choice) deal extra cumulative damage every turn plus guarantees a critical hit from a One Mile Punch, a Warbringer Axe attack or a Psychic Knives.

Psylocke (Infiltrator)

Quicksilver (Scrapper Blue Costume)

To use this team, you basically setup Mental Coordination with Psylocke as soon as possible, keep on making Blind Punches with Quicksilver to stack up his Quickness buff and let his passive deal the One Mile Punches for him. You may occasionally want to do a Tag Team before attacking so that One Mile Punch gets the Combo Setup Combo, but Quicksilver will usually counterattack with Tag Team when he is attacked while having at least one Quickness stack. This is why it is very important to do only Blinding Punches. Finally, your Agent should use Quantum Jumper whenever he/she can. This will be the only moment that Psylocke can setup Weak Mind with Telekinetic Katana onto a Psychic Knives during the same turn, but only if she used Mental Coordination during the past turn. Try not to use area attacks like Tag Team and Dark Sigil too often because the Mental Coordination bonus only triggers after single-target attacks.

Try this interesting team and tell me if it works for you. For me, it is making wonders at PVP!
Cheers!

Mockingbird Strategy

Mockingbird
	Organization:	S.H.I.E.L.D.
	Cost:	Complete Special Operations 1 200  (November 23 - 26, 2012)
	Base Stats
	Health:	126
	Stamina:	155
	Attack:	25
	Defense:	28
	Accuracy:	31
	Evasion:	31
Heroic Age Mockingbird	Effects:	Mock Combat    Tactical Insight
Bio: Barbara Morse was researching a way to recreate the Super Soldier Serum when she was recruited by SHIELD. There, she trained to match her athleticism to her intelligence, Despite a lack of powers, her natural combat prowess has earned her a place on the Avenger's team.

source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Mockingbird


I'm amazed at how there is actually not a single page of discussion regarding Mockingbird's strategic potential in PVP battles on Marvel: Avengers Alliance.

Since Mockingbird became available for a limited time as a Black Friday sale from Playdom, I immediately spent all my Command Points and Gold to buy her. She is by FAR the most expensive hero in the game, sitting at a heavy 200CP, but I think she is actually well worth it. First off, her SpeOps requirements were pretty difficult (far more difficult than the other SpecOps missions), you couldn't skip tasks with Gold to get her because, in the first place, there was only ONE task in that first SpecOps: Get 15 Mastery stars. Another great reason to buy her is that she is a Top Tier hero in PVP matches. If you haven't met her already in PVP, then I will explain to you will she is so awesome.

Although she has very low Attack Power statistics (probably the lowest in the entire game), there is a good reason for her to be like that. Her lvl1 and lvl9 attacks deal extra damage when she inflicts critical hits. Combine that with her lvl6 ability to ensure critical hits on every single target for the next attack and her Paragon Exploiter passive ability for the lvl9 attack, which deals even more extra damage, and you have a very solid damage dealer.

Twin Strike			Pole VaultLevel 2
Stamina Cost:	79		Stamina Cost:	119
Target:	One Enemy		Target:	One Enemy
Cooldown:	n/a		Cooldown:	2 Rounds
# of Hits:	2		# of Hits:	1
Hit/Critical:	92% / 16%		Hit/Critical:	92% / 16%
Type:	Melee		Type:	Melee Unarmed
Deadly Crits    Pressure Points			Combo Setup    Stun
Critical IntelLevel 6			Mocking BlowLevel 9
Stamina Cost:	63		Stamina Cost:	199
Target:	All Enemies		Target:	One Enemy
Cooldown:	3 rounds		Cooldown:	n/a
# of Hits:	n/a		# of Hits:	1
Hit/Critical:	92%		Hit/Critical:	92% / 16%
Type:	Debuff		Type:	Melee
Critical Intel    Subtle    Quick Action  Weak Point			Paragon Exploiter    Deadly Crits

source: http://avengersalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Mockingbird


Now, there are other pretty efficient damage dealers in the game that can't compare to Mockingbird's power level. Most Blasters and Bruisers are proficient in that area, but Mockingbird has yet another trick: her TWO continuous passive ability: Mock Combat and Tactical Insight.

Mock Combat

This really cool passive is a pain in the ass for your opponents. Mock Combats enables Mockingbird to switch to its attacker's counter-class. That means, if a Bruiser attacks her, she will automatically switch to the Blaster class. In other words, if you attack her, she will attack back with full power because she will ALWAYS exploit your opponent's hero class weakness. If you think this is nasty, wait and see what happens when it combines with her second continuous passive ability:

Tactical Insight

Mockingbird's second passive ability gives her a 50% chance of gaining a EXTRA TURN whenever she switches classes (this applies to either Mock Combat or Critical Intel, from her lvl6 ability). Gaining an extra turn is, in its own right, a very powerful ability in this game. But what makes her so damn powerful is that she gets to attack with her attackers counterclass because of Mock Combat or Critical Intel. Playdom patched her to gain only one extra turn from this ability each round. In the past, she could loop infinitely and kill an entire opposing party before they even had a chance to take and action!

Mockingbird's Meta-Game

Now, we can easily see why Mock Combat/Critical Intel + Tactical Insight is a pretty strong mechanic for a damage-dealing character, but there is more to it that that. Mockingbird has even more secret tricks up her sleeve!

Dual-Classes and Triple-Classes!

Certain Clases gain bonuses that are not immediately exploited. For example, Bruisers first have to charge up with Enraged, Scrappers use their Close-Quarter Combat after they get hit by infiltrators or attack them, and Infiltrators Counterattack only after they have already hit or been hit by Tacticians. This means that these class bonuses accumulate when Mockingbird changes class. That's right. These are the possible 'Dual-Classes' for Mockingbird to obtain:

Infiltrator onto Blaster:

When Mockingbird is an Infiltrator with Combat Reflexes and a Bruiser attacks her, she counterattacks as a Blaster, dealing a Critical hit that ignores defense.

Bruiser onto Infiltrator onto Blaster:

I've even experienced situations in where Mockingbird has Enraged from a previous Bruiser class change, while having Combat Reflexes and counterattacking a Bruiser with a class change to Blaster for a critical hit that ignores defense PLUS the Enraged bonus!

Bruiser onto Scrapper:

When Mockingbird is a Enraged Bruiser and she changes classes onto Scrapper, the Scrapper will attack twice any Infiltrator with the accumulated Enraged bonus!

Bruiser onto Tactician:

When Mockingbird is an Enraged Bruiser and she changes classes onto Tactician, the Tactician can attack a Blaster with the full Enraged bonus and get an extra turn to take another action, preferably another powerful attack with the Enraged bonus.

Scrapper onto Bruiser onto Tactician:

This one is powerful. If Mockingbird has Close-Quarter Combat and is attacked by a Scrapper, she will change onto Bruiser and gain Enraged. Then, if she attacks a Blaster, she makes two strikes because of Close-Quarter Combat, then switch to Tactician, gain an additional turn and attack again while still being Enraged! Now thats an epic triple class change!

Scrapper onto Blaster:

When Mockingbird is a Scrapper with Close Quarter Combat active and she gets to attack a Bruiser while changing classes because of Tactical Insight, she will land TWO critical attacks on the Bruiser because she will be a Blaster with Close Quarter Combat. This almost always spells the death of the Bruiser because her Twin-Strikes and Mocking Blow deal extra damage on critical hits. This is one of the most unfair an epic 'dual-classes' for Mockingbird.

From what I've experienced, these are the only possible dual classes combinations. They can be a little difficult to exploit, but when the situation presents itself, you are almost sure to kill one or two heroes with Mockingbird's insane 'dual-classes' and 'triple classes'.

Critical!

As mentioned before, Mockingbird has two attacks that deal extra damage when they are critical hits. They can be exploited with Critical Intel, which applies the Weak Point debuff on every single opponent. Weak Point makes the next attack against that target an ensured Critical Hit, which means epic amounts of damage from Twin Strike and/or Mocking Blow. The only problem with Critical Intel is that it has a cooldown of 3 rounds.

There are some weapons that the Agent can equip which also give Weak Point to each opponent. One of them is the rather weak Target Painter. Another one is the Marksman Spotter, which was a rare drop from the Boss fight on Chapter 3, Mission 1 of SpecOps3 on the X-Men side of the story. The last and really useful one is Dark Sigil, a rare item dropped by Boss fight Dormammu on mission 6, Chapter 9. You can farm for it by replaying the mission until you get it. It inflicts Burning, Dark Void, Weak Point, and has a 100% chance to hit. This means that you can exploit the extra critical damage from Mockingbird every single turn! Also, notice that Mockingbird's lvl9 attacks, Mocking Blow, beside from the extra critical damage, it also has Paragon Exploiter, which deals extra damage against targets that have several different debuffs, including Burning, which Dark Sigil provides. You can also take advantage of Paragon Exploiter with Ghost Rider's Damnation Chains, Scarlett Witch's Probability Field and the complete Demon set (or at least Fury with Grief).

Hero Pairings

Mockingbird is a powerhouse than can inflict obscene amounts of damage with the appropriate Agent equipment and Hero pairing. Be sure to bring her into battle alongside a shielding hero. Dorks like Captain America, Phoenix Five Colossus, Spider Man and Hercules look very tempting, but you actually want her to receive attacks for her to trigger those extra turns and class changes. What you actually want are non-blocking defense types, like Invisible Woman (which, by the way, has the Reactive Shields passive ability), or maybe Modern Dr. Strange, which has a passive ability that enacts a shield automatically sometimes, when a character is attacked. He is not as protective as Invisible Woman, but he does deal a lot more damage, has healing and minor shielding spells, and can take extra turns just by attacking. I recommend Invisible Woman if you are using Dark Sigil because her Force Spheres and Force Volley also deal extra damage with critical hits.

 + or 

Finally, for Mockingbird's Iso-8 Crystals, purchase the ones that increase attack power, defense and hit points, like the white Refined Stalwart Iso-8 Crystal. You can actually put any crustal you want on her, just make sure that each and every one boosts her attack power.

Cheers!