There have been a LOT of questions floating around about the new Heroic Battles feature that was introduced with Season 2. These missions are designed to be run with just the heroes against an enemy or group of enemies. While it may look like a straight-up battle, many of these missions have special abilities or twists thrown in that change things up. First and foremost, your agent is not present during these battles, which means that you can't use items. This isn't really a problem, because the battles are designed to be won with just the heroes you have. As such, they're more like a puzzle than an actual battle, and if you follow the proper sequence of events you should be able to beat them with no problem. Let's have a look at them, shall we?
TIPS[]
First some tips:
- LEVEL YOUR HEROES - I can't stress this one enough. If your heroes are not at least level 9 for the majority of these battles, you will get stomped into the ground. It'd be best if you had them at least at 10, and preferably 11 or 12.
- ISO YOUR HEROES - If you don't have them properly ISO'd, you're probably going to take a beating as well. I suggest having a look at Potkettleblack's excellent blog on how to ISO your heroes . His builds work great for PvP, PvE, and the Heroic Battles.
- READ THE FLAVOR TEXT - If you read the pre-event text and the list of abilities on the enemies, it will give you a good clue as to what you're supposed to do in order to beat the battle
Season 2 Heroic Battles[]
Chapter 1[]
Mission 1 - Artificial Sweetener[]
Rogue and Gambit versus Two Prime Sentinels
This one is a fairly straightforward battle, with no special gimmicks up their sleeves. Fortunately these are Prime Sentinels, which have organic components that Rogue can exploit. Use Rogue's Southern Comfort to get her an extra turn on the next round, and either have Gambit pepper the other team with Royal Flush (if he goes before Rogue) or start building charges with his Bo Roulette (if he goes after Rogue). On round two, use Rogue's Absorb Power and then Drain Essence if she needs healing, or Brawl if she doesn't. If you bult charges with Gambit and got lucky, pop a card on one of the Sentinels to Expose them, then hit them with his Ragin Cajun. If you used Royal Flush, hit them with Bo Roulette to get some charges in there and then use Ragin Cajun on the next round. Just keep hammering on them, focus fire on one Sentinel at a time, and you should be able to take them down.
Mission 2 - Trans-Atlantic[]
Wolverine versus Sabretooth
Ahh, a classic battle if I ever saw one. This one works in either Wolverine's default suit or his Brown & Tan suit in Scrapper mode. Whatever you do, DO NOT GO INTO THIS BATTLE IN HIS INF SUIT. Unless you're suicidal. In which case, they make hotlines for that sort of thing. Go call one. But I digress.
Sabretooth gets increasingly buffed each wave, but that's no big deal to handle if you plan it right. There are two different ways you can go at this, depending on how much damage you want to dish out per wave. In reality, all you need to beat Sabretooth is Wolverine's L1 and L2 (and you may not even need the L2, but do we really want to drag the battle out like that?) Open with the L1 in round 1, then follow with the L2 in round 2 to exploit the bleeds you laid on him. Simple as that. Repeat as necessary, and Wave 1 will be a snap. Before you administer the coup de grace and finish off Wave 1 you may want to spend a round recharging your stamina so you don't have to recharge as much later in the fight. Wave 2 has Sabretooth starting out with his healing factor turned on, but no worries, there - follow the pattern and it's a moot point. Before you off him in Wave 2, make sure you recharge your stamina so you'll have enough to run the combo twice in Wave 3. The reason for this is Sabretooth flips into Frenzy mode in Wave 3 and starts taking two attacks per turn, and we don't want to burn any of our turns recharging in this wave. Once again, follow the pattern, and he'll be dead in no time flat.
The other way? It's not that different. If you want to dish out extra damage during the battle, you can use the sequence of L6-L1-L2 instead of just L1-L2, but in the grand scheme of things the L6 isn't really necessary.
Mission 3 - Sword in the Stone[]
Nightcrawler versus Mystique
There's something slighly Freudian about a guy beating on his mother, nicht wahr? Especially if you put him in his Scrapper alt with that long, pointy sword. But then again, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and that Scrapper alt will make this battle a LOT easier than it would be if you went in with his base Inf suit. One thing to remember is that Mystique is not immune to being stunned in this battle, so I usually open up with the Night Kick. With the Scrapper alt, he immediately gets in a free Ambush, so in the first round she's Weakened, Bleeding, possibly Stunned, and set up for his next hit in round 2. In Round 2, go for the Triple Threat, which adds another bleed and has a chance for a freebie follow-up with Ambush, so you might just end up with two Ambush attacks off this one, making for a full three stacks of Bleed and some nice Hemorrhage damage, too. At this point, Mystique will probably start shape-shifting and may use a different hero's abilities against you. No worries. She's triple-bleeding, so if that doesn't kill her then your next attack probably will. Easy, peasy, lemon-squeezy.
Mission 4 - Vulture, MP[]
Spider-Woman versus Modok (and flunkies)
First and foremost, you HAVE to have Spider-Woman at least at level 9 before you go into this battle, or they're going to beat her like she owes them money. You need her Fear Pheremones to make this battle work. If you look at the AIM Bioethicist's debuff, you'll see that the Budget Airfilters will make them heal and sometimes protect the enemy when they're affected by the pheremones. We definitely want to use this to our advantage. When the battle opens up, immediately use the Fear Pheremones. DO NOT USE HER L6 (Vengeance) ABILITY! We don't want her counter-attacking the beekeepers until Modok is dead, because they're our source of healing during this battle. Once she has the pheremones up, use Venom Blast on Modok, and keep using it on him. This resets his Doomsday Clock ability each time he gets hit with it. When the Pheremones run out, fire them off again, and if Modok hits you with Mental Anguish, use that as your time to recharge your stamina. With any luck Modok won't do his self-heal, and you'll be able to whittle him down. Once he's down, fire up Vengeance, take out the drones, and you're done.
NOTE: This one has changed greatly with her refactor. Apparently all you need to do anymore is just spam her Venom Blast.
Mission 5 - God Save the Queen[]
Hercules versus Thor
This one is really funny, because in my head I get this mental image of a somewhat drunk Herc and Thor beating the crap out of each other, and then once it's done they go back to the bar and have another beer. But anyway, on to the strategy. This battle features a stackable passive that buffs you if you recharge and won't buff you if the other guy rested first (because you're supposed to hit him). There's our in. Don't take a poke at Thor, no matter how tempted you are. Recharge for the first three or four rounds - you'll know how many you need after the first time you run it, so if you're in doubt, go for four - and once you have a good number of stacks of the passive, use Herc's Level 6 and huck a rock at Thor. You'll drop him like a bad habit.
Premium Mission: To Catch a Thief[]
Cable and Deadpool versus The U-Foes (Ironclad, then X-Ray, Vector, and Vapor)
This one is the battle I love to hate, because sometimes it seems to come down to luck of the draw, depending on what Deadpool does. The first wave puts you up against Ironclad. He's going to smack Deadpool twice and get his Enraged on. Have DP recharge, because he's basically useless in this wave. Next we need to get Cable's Stamina down so he can go into TO-Overdrive mode in Wave 2, so use his L9 Temporal Shift on DP to burn some. Have DP recharge again. Then use Cable's L2 Bodyslide on Ironclad. This won't kill him, and he'll probably take another poke at Deadpool, which is fine. Next round, have DP recharge again, and use Cable's Bodyslide again. This should take out Ironclad and move us into Wave 2. Wave 2 gets a bit screwy and DP decides to break the 4th Wall by writing himself over Vector so he can be closer to Vapor. Cheeky little bugger, isn't he? Don't sweat it, though - he won't attack Cable directly. The worst he can do is screw things up by rendering Cable Nerfed or Buggy with his passive, so hopefully that won't happen. If Cable hasn't already flipped into Overdrive mode, go ahead and flip him. Use his L1 Psionic Spikes to kill X-Ray before he can stack too much radiation on everyone. Let Vapor and DP do their thing. DP should protect from any attack Vapor tries. With any luck you should have enough stamina to flip back to TO-Control mode, so do that, then use Temporal Shift on Cable to get extra turns. That should drop your stamina enough to flip back over to Overdrive mode, so do that. Use Psionic Spikes on Deadpool and then Vapor (or Vapor and then Deadpool, whatever floats your goat) on each of your turns, and you should juuuuust barely survive the battle.
Chapter 2[]
Mission 1 - Antiquity[]
Doctor Strange vs. Dormammu
This one isn't that hard if you know what's coming. After the first round Dormammu will summon demons to assist him, so I would suggest you open up in the first round with the usual Bolts of Balthak. After D-mu gets his summon in, hit the whole group with Vapors of Valtorr. It'll throw a debuff on the demons that will make them attack each other and Dormammu so long as there is another enemy on the screen. When I ran the battle the first time they basically just sat there and growled for most of their turns, but that's neither here nor there. Just keep up the assault on D-mu, use the Teresing boost if you get low on health, and you should be able to mop this one up with no problems.
Empowered ISO: Enchanted - Grants "Baleful", Dr. Strange's Bolts of Balthakk gain Exploit Attrition
Mission 2 - Eight Fingers[]
Daredevil vs. Bullseye
This one confused me a bit on the first go-around, because the wording on how Bullseye's debuff works was a bit unclear. Basically, if you properly guess what Bullseye's next attack is going to be, DD will get a free counter-attack. Unfortunately I didn't really get to see if there was a pattern of any sort, as I took Bullseye down with two shots. A L9 hit from a Lvl12 DD really puts a hurting on the enemy, y'know?
Empowered ISO: Tylphotic - Grants "Sensitive" - Radar Sense will grant Paragon Exploiter to DD's attacks
Mission 3 - Foggy Vision[]
Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man vs. the H.Y.D.R.A. clones
This one won't be too hard if you have the Modern Thor alt suit (Blaster mode), one of Cap's WW2 suits (I prefer the Tac mode), and one of Iron Man's alts (the Mk42 in Blaster mode would be preferable, but if you only have the Mk5, that's ok too). Wave 1 - What do we always do with Modern Thor on Wave 1? That's right: Inspire and then call down the lightning. If that doesn't totally demolish the opposition then Cap and Shellhead can play cleanup. Waves 2 and 3 should be a snap. With Cap jumping in to defend and counter, you probably won't even break a sweat.
Empowered ISO: Fervent - Grants "Discus" - Cap gains a chance to counter ranged attacks with Shield Throw