I’ve been playing Marvel Heroes since closed beta, so I’ve had some time to ease into all the additions and changes Gazillion has made to the game over the years. Leveling up new characters and gearing them out is a familiar process for me, but it wasn’t until a recent discussion I had with our very own Som Pourfarzaneh about what to do at level cap that I realized figuring out what to do once done with the game’s story content can be daunting. Keeping that in mind, along with the fact that Marvel Heroes will be launching its 2016 rebrand very shortly, we felt it would be a good idea to put together a handy guide for all of you hitting level cap for the first time.
Be sure to check out part one of our guide before you read on!
Odin Marks & Legendary Items
Legendary quests (found in your quest log, default: L) are randomly pulled from a pool of possible options and can be re-rolled until you find one you like (provided you have the credits). Personally, I only bother with Legendary Quests that send me to Challenges (Midtown / Industry City) or Terminals. But if you’re just starting out, you may not have the credits to reroll for these.
These quests are infinitely repeatable and serve as your primary source of Odin Marks. Odin Marks are crucial to rounding out your character and in taking advantage of Marvel Heroes’ barter economy. One hundred Odin Marks will allow you to bless an artifact item with a blessing of your choice (typically Hela for the Brutal Strike chance) and 300 Odin Marks will allow you to purchase a Legendary item for your character.
Legendary items are some of the most highly impactful items you can fit on your character, so your selection here is important. Generally speaking, Gungnir will work on most characters, but you’ll want to review some builds over at MarvelHeroes.info to find optimal choices for specific characters. Legendary Items can be purchased from the Legendary Item vendor at the Odin’s Palace hub.
Odin Marks are also key for item trading. Since Marvel Heroes does not feature an auction house, players have formed a barter economy. Obviously, item to item trades are straightforward, but players also value trading for blessings that they can then swap onto their own artifacts using the Swap Blessings recipe available at the crafter. To trade blessings, simply bless an unbound junk artifact with a Hela blessing for 100 Marks. For example, the aforementioned Gem of the Kursed artifact typically trades for five to six Hela blessings (500-600 Odin Marks), though these rates do change. There's a handy thread on the official forums that attempts to keep track of common item values. I'd suggest bookmarking it to make your life easier!
Crafters & Enchanters
One of the first things I tell new players is to not sell their items to vendors. If you have items you want to get rid of, make sure you donate them to your crafter and enchanter. Donating items levels these NPCs up and many important recipes are gated behind your crafter and enchanter’s levels. Some recipes are drops or must be acquired from vendors using currency such as Cube Shards or raid commendations.
Daily/Weekly Activities
Doing your daily and weekly shared quests (found in your quest log) as well as your GLF daily and weekly quests are key to gaining commendations used to purchase important recipes (such as unique item level upgrades), which is another long term goal you should be aiming for. It will take time, but you eventually want to have recipes to upgrade all of your unique slots to Item Level 66 and 69. And no, you can’t skip straight to 69s. GLF quests are given out at the GLF Headquarters at the Hammer Bay hub. These quests will also level up your influence with the GLF, which is required for additional recipes, and the most impactful item of all: your Level 80 Legendary (a more powerful version of the basic Legendary item).
Raids
Marvel Heroes also features a number of raids, but without delving in too deeply here, your goal starting out is to be able to successfully complete the Green Muspelheim raid. This is the easiest raid in the game, but you should still hit some of the previously outlined goals before attempting a green raid. Having a full set of blessed artifacts, your uniques, and a Legendary item should be enough to get you through Green Muspelheim. Raid loot tables are on a weekly lockout which resets every Wednesday. However, the loot tables for raid bosses are on a per- character basis, so you can do a raid once a week on each character for a chance at raid boss specific loot. Commendation (raid token) rewards are on an account-wide weekly cooldown, so you'll only earn them on your first clear of each raid every week.
Omega Points
Omega Points are an alternate advancement system in Marvel Heroes. All experience earned will also go towards your Omega Experience bar and each “level up” will grant you an Omega point to spend up to a cap of 7500. These points are account wide and characters can each have individual Omega loadouts.
Omegas are hugely impactful on your character’s performance and will in fact gate you from doing certain activities. Broadly speaking, you’ll want around 1200 Omega points before attempting a Green Muspelheim raid, 2500-3000 for Red Muspelheim, and roughly 5000 for Green Axis.
The two most efficient ways to farm Omega points are to repeatedly run the Cosmic Taskmaster Terminal or to farm Cosmic Midtown or Industry City Patrol. In order to qualify for the Cosmic versions of these patrol modes, you’ll need to clear a timed trial found at the bottom of the Midtown Patrol map. It's basically a gear check to ensure you're capable of handling yourself in there.
To get you started, you'll want to aim for maxing out the S.P.I.N. Tech Omega Node found under Nanotechnology. These are where I put my first 600 points on every character I play. Beyond that, it can vary from character to character, so you'll want to check out some character specific guides.
Synergies
Each character comes with a pair of synergy buffs that are unlocked when reaching level 25 and level 50 respectively. These buffs can be toggled on (for up to a total of 10 sets of buffs) on each character you play. Characters will often have specific heroes they’ll want to toggle on for optimal buff loadouts. To optimize your character, you’ll be getting quite a few other heroes to level 50 even if you intend to only play the one. This is more of a long term goal than anything else since synergy buffs aren't hugely impactful for the time and effort that goes into acquiring them.
I’ll get you started with some universally applicable synergies:
- Cyclops (+10% Experience)
- Blade (+3% Attack Speed)
- Cable (+2% Critical Chance)
- Squirrel Girl (+4% Damage vs. Bosses)
- War Machine (+1 Fighting)
- Wolverine (+2% Brutal Strike Chance)
Team Ups
Finally, you’ll want to unlock a Team Up. Team Ups can offer great utility or damage, can be run actively alongside you, or passively if you prefer. Team Ups earn levels, equip gear, and can be spec’d out with their own power points. These characters can have a significant influence on your survivability and DPS output, so don’t neglect them.
Some popular Team-Up choices include:
Damage: Coulson, Clea, Wolverine, Carnage
Utility: The Deadpool Kid, Clea, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Firestar
An alternative to The Deadpool Kid is Pirate Deadpool, who has the exact same skillset. You can actually acquire this team-up free through an achievement. HolyForce on the official forums has put together a handy guide to help you unlock him.
You should be fine with whichever Team Up you decide to use, but the above are some optimal picks to consider.
