Playing around with Dormammu in both Chapter 9 and special ops got me thinking about beating really hard bosses in very long fights. I went searching, and I came back with a winner. I already laid out the basics of this in my Dormammu strategy guide, but I thought I'd work through it a bit further.
Requirements[]
Ideally, to use this strategy, you will need one of the following pieces, listed in order of desirability:
The instrument of their destruction.
I have both and much prefer The Doombringer, but I understand that it's a roulette drop from an epic boss that requires a 90 CP hero, so might not be universally owned. If, perhaps you have the Norn Stone instead (which comes from an epic boss that requires a lousy 90 CP hero), that will work also. If you don't have either, you can get a similar effect by using a ton of consumbles and buff items that don't actually hit the target, perhaps with a hero that has Finest Hour! on one of their attacks.
The reason they are ranked thusly is that Doombringer raises stats the most, while draining stats from the victim, thereby reducing the threat of our Doomed victim. Norn Stone raises stats a bit less, without draining. And Iron Fist's Heart of Shou-Lau builds slowest of them all. So, if you are a caviar player, like me, you can do this relatively quickly compared to a Pabst Blue Ribbon player who only has Iron Fist.
The Vision[]
We are going to stack a stat enhancement many times over on either our agent (in the case of Full of Doom or Amazing Fate) or our hero (in the case of using consumbles and buffs). Once our target is sufficiently loaded, we will set him on a path of destruction using a "big gun." The Big Gun will be an attack sufficient to not just one shot kill any target, but to one shot epic overkill any target. I find that 15 stacks of Doom are sufficient with a big enough gun. Our Big Gun should, for sanity's sake, not have a cooldown, if only because we want to be done with this after stacking 20+ stacks of something. If you lack either of my Big Guns of choice, Golden Screaming Eagle and Ring of Balthak any sufficiently good multiple use weapon will work, you might just need to stack our enhancement higher.
The reason I like the GSE for this is pretty straightforward. It does a ton of damage and always crits, jumping the already large damage by another 50%. Since it's a Golden weapon, it continues to level with me, so I never outgrow it. The main drawback to this weapon is accuracy. My GSE starts at about 80% accuracy. By the time I have 10 Full of Dooms stacked, it is 100%/100%. It will not miss, assuming there is no evasion skill involved. If you choose to use something else, say the Golden Needle Gun or Grief
, you will want to stack it until the damage as reported in the tooltip when you select the weapon, is well beyond the HP of the highest enemy you will hit. My Epic Dormammu clocks in at roughly 12000 HP. Since he will be epically overkilled at roughly 36K, that's the bottom range I go for. Of course, GSE always crits, so I can shave a third off that and go for a bottom damage of 24K. For me, that's about 20 stacks.
Deadly Crit items, like the Ring of Balthak, have larger multipliers on their critial hit. I believe that RoB has a 3x multiplier, while the Goblin Glider has been reduced to a 2x multiplier (but had it's base damage increased). The advantage that RoB has vs. Goblin Glider is that it's more energy efficient and generally does more damage on a critical hit. The disadvantage that these weapons have against the GSE is that they don't get the guaranteed crit until you get 12-15 stacks of Doom. You could fix that with a Penetrating Strike, but a bit of patience in adding the extra stacks of Doom payoff in damage as well.
Not even optimally performed.
The purpose behind this madness is not just to beat a difficult boss. It is to score absurdly. Like this, my first run with it. Each One Hit KO is worth 150 points. Each Epic Overkill is worth 150 points. Each member of our team who survives multiplies this by 3. On an Epic Boss, this is multiplied by 10. On a three-bird, this is multiplied by 15. So, each One Hit Epic Overkill is worth 9000 points in the fight (~18000 in the mission), before we do anything else. Big scores mean fast stars. Fast stars mean fewer runs. In the case of Special Ops, that means less ISO. Yes, now you see the point of all this.
Making It Work[]
One person describes the process as loading out like this:
- Agent
- Any Weapon
- The Doombringer/Norn Stone
- Curative Reach
- Any gadget
- Any Hero who Needs XP
- Any Hero who Needs XP
I can't say he's wrong, but I can say there are some different ways to do this.
Curative Reach is actually pretty good in this situation, because it heals based on the Agent's Attack. The Agent's attack is going through the roof, so Curative Reach will heal everything short of raising the dead. So, Curative Reach can stay (or it can go, as there are other ways to heal). A note: Curative Reach works much better with the Norn Stone version of this strategy, as the Norn Stone doesn't make the enemy weaker as the Doombringer does. With 8 stacks of Doom, the enemy cannot really hit you anymore. That fourth gadget could be a Quantum Jumper, a Xanthine Alkaloid Injector, or whatever. Things you don't want/need to carry would include targeting devices (as we stack, our accuracy goes through the roof... 3 stacks of Doom and my GSE is 100/100) and damage boosters (we're already jacking damage through the roof, but it doesn't hurt to add something to kick it up right before you go off).
Since we are losing any semblance of timing bonus, I think it's important to make up those points. This can be done, easily, by using ten items during the fight. That will get us a 250 point Quartermaster bonus (7500 points on final score).
Since the heroes don't matter, instead, we could use a pairing that will get a large bonus for us. One very aggressive idea is to use Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, which would drop another 250 points (another 7500 on the final score). I think it might be easier to use Emma Frost and Phoenix which will only produce 200 points (only 6000 to the final score), but come with an ability to refresh stamina and to make a tank.
NOTE: You do not EVER want to rest any member of your team. It will cost you 150 points on the total, which is 4500 on the fight score.
Heroes You Do Not Want To Bring[]
Since the key to making this all work is on getting one shot overkills, heroes that do passive assists are bad ideas. Here is a nowhere near complete list:
- Don't bring an infiltrator to a fight with tacticians.
- The counter-strike could go off.
- Magik
- Fiery Retribution and Ruler of Limbo both process randomly and do damage.
- Quicksilver
- Uncontrolled area attacks are not good here. Neither are counter attacks.
- Gambit
- Infiltrator AND Wild Card
- Movie Uniformed Avengers
- Coordinated Defense will mess up the strategy, no matter how rare the process.
- It's also possible that Cooperative Attack will kick in on a Doombringer strike. I'm not sure.
- WW2 Captain America
- Shield Guard is a bad idea.
- Hercules
- His tanking ability counters.
- Deadpool
- Whine on the Forums/Nerfed does damage. It's also possible that Bugged may count as a hit.
- Human Torch
- Plasma Body. If they melee while you're getting charged, you've lost a one-shot.
- Goes double for Annhilus Human Torch. Cosmic Control Rod will ruin it, too.
A Couple Suggested Heroes[]
- Invisible Woman as a blaster or as an INF without tacts.
- Shields, passive and active, plus Force Cage.
- The Doombringer is Subtle. And Force Cage allows Subtle attacks through. Woot!
- Emma Frost
- Can refresh stamina without using inventory. Very hard to damage.
- Colossus
- Can tank every round, takes a ton of damage.
- Luke Cage
- Four round bodyguard gives him a lot of turns to use items while keeping the damage controlled.
- Thor
- Strengthened buff speed the process.
- Ghost Rider
- Passive lowers defense on all attackers, increasing agent effectiveness.
- Dr. Strange
- Shield + Healing.
- Scarlet Witch
- Chaos Shield works nicely.
Last Word On Hero Recommendations[]
It is important that you control the flow of the fight, but don't avoid a hero that you need to level if you can control their downsides. Remember, you're going to want to use 10 items from inventory in every fight that you use this technique in, so a lack of passive moves is okay.
The Actual Fight[]
In the Epic Dormammu fight, there are three rounds of two Mindless Ones and one Dormammu. We are going to work to quickly dispatch one Mindless One and the first Dormammu. Then, we will set up and boost our agent until we have enough stacks of Doom/Fate/Heart to one hit epic overkill everything on the rest of the board. Once we're ready, we might want to strap a Tacticial Strike to the Agent/Iron Fist. We might also want to strap them with something to boost their attack, like a Kinetic Amplifier (woo!).
Once we shoot that final Mindless One, we get a new group of the same. Since we have a tactical strike, Down goes Dormy and a Mindless one. Heroes/Non-Iron Fist apply goodies or tank up, or heal and wait for Agent/Iron Fist's turn to come around again. Down goes Mindless and we do it again for another set of folks. We might need to renew the Kinetic Amp. We will not need to renew the Doom/Heart/Fate. Not for 100 rounds from the first stack.
Going Faster[]
Chrono Accelerators makes this go a lot faster. Tactical Strikes do not speed the Doombringing, because it's not an attack. Quantum Elixiers also make it go faster, as they remove the need to refill stamina. Anything that gets you extra turns will accelerate the process, so if you're going with Iron Fist, Quantum Jumper and Mag Field are good ideas.
Closing Thoughts[]
A few extra pointers. Every bit of health and stamina you can have at the end will result in Vitality Bonus, which is worth points on the total. So, it's worth healing. But you really can bring pretty much anyone and anything to this type of fight. You just need time.