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!