Marvel Avengers Alliance Perfect Strategy Bonus Guide

Marvel Avengers Alliance Perfect Strategy Bonus Guide by Cidolfas

What is “Perfect Strategy”?
It is a bonus score you get at the end of battle if your team does not take any damage.

Why would you want to go after it?
Aside from satisfying your perfectionist side, it gives you 500 bonus score at the end of battle. Not bad for Spec Ops, especially if you can pull it off with 2 or 3-bird multiplier (defeating boss and mini-bosses at the same time).

Is it worth it?
Well, that depends. If you like to focus on attacking, then you can ignore this guide. However, getting that extra 500 points while pulling off two birds will give you extra 45k points at the end of battle (x3 for Survival, x10 for two birds). Furthermore, there’s nothing preventing you to go for overkills (or one-shots if it’s multiple-waves-battle) while maintaining “Perfect Strategy.”

Now, these are the things that do NOT ruin “Perfect Strategy”:
1. Receiving “0” damage (has a Shield on while taking hits).
2. Receiving Debuffs (such as Slowed, Exposed, Exhaustion, etc). If the Debuff is damaging (such as Bleeding, Poison, Radiation, etc), it must be removed before it reduces your health. If you manage to remove the damaging Debuff before it hurts your team, you will still get the “Perfect Strategy.”
Poison, Bleeding, Burning and ISO-8 Corruption reduce health when the unit’s turn comes up.
Radiation reduces health at the beginning of new round. Keep this in mind (see footnote 1).
3. Using “Distress Call” and the called unit takes damage.
Outside unit summoned by “Distress Call” is excluded. Even if the unit called by “Distress Call” takes damage, you will not lose the “Perfect Strategy” bonus.

Major edit after game updates on 7/12/2012:
Seems like CA got promoted to General America. Needless to say, I’d suggest to buy his WWII alt costume, use Norton Shield on himself on the first turn and do your best to finish the battle as fast as possible! Should you decide to use gadgets and items which give extra turn(s) to your party (such as QJ, MFG, Chrono Accelerator, etc…), keep in mind that for every extra turn(s) that Capt gets (even from Tactician’s bonus), his Shield Guard duration will also be reduced.

To further enhance your wall, feel free to give him additional force fields such as Mirror Field Generator, Force Field Generator, Magnetic Field Generator, Construct Matrix, Invisible Woman’s Force Field, or Dr. Strange’s Shield of the Seraphim. Finally, be careful when you encounter enemies which have ‘Stealthy’ or ‘Ignore defense’ attack and adjust your battle plan accordingly.

Additional guide before 7/12/2012, feel free to read, hope the strategies described here could inspire you to improve your team’s defense:

Tips for achieving “Perfect Strategy”:
1. Being lucky to get the first turn and kill all enemy in one shot.
2. Bring Captain You-Know-Who, hope that he successfully dodges all attacks, and quickly finish the battle within 2 rounds. Otherwise, bring Any-Kind-of-Field Generators (e.g: Force Field Generator, Mirror Field Generator, Magnetic Field Generator, Construct Matrix, etc.).
3. Increase your teams’ evasion as high as possible and hope that they dodge all attacks thrown at them.
4. Take maximum advantage of enemy’s class weakness. The most offensive bonuses come from Blaster against Bruiser (attacks are guaranteed to ignore defense and crit, hopefully One-Hit-KO them), Scrapper against Infiltrator (grants double attack, again, either hopefully Two-Hits-KO them or left with little health left to be finished in the 2nd round), and Tactician against Blaster (grants additional free turn).

Other useful gadgets:
1. Quantum Jumper. Having an extra turn for your team is a huge advantage, especially if you exploit enemies’ weaknesses. Remember that Tacticians’ free-turn-bonus-from-attacking-Blaster can only be obtained once per round. Scrappers still get their double-attack-bonus in any turn.

Useful combos:
1. Protect allies abilities + Force Field users or gadgets.
The idea is to set up shields for a single ally and redirect all attacks to him/her.
2. Increase evasion + protect allies abilities.
A famous example is to redirect attacks to a hero who has high evasion rate such as Spiderman or Daredevil.
3. Item “Protect” + invulnerability.
At the time when this guide is written, only one character has a move which grants invulnerability, and that is Kitty Pryde. Her “Phased Attack” gives her “Phased” status which renders her invulnerable to all attacks. Consider redirecting all attacks to her when she is in “Phased” status.

Redirecting attacks
Heroes who can redirect single-target-attacks:
1. Phoenix’s “Mind Link.” Can choose which ally you intend to be the target.
2. Colossus’ “Steel Curtain.”
3. Thing’s “Stonewall.”
4. Luke Cage’s “Bodyguard.”

Heroes who can redirect both single and multiple-target-attacks:
1. Captain America’s “Shield Guard.”
Offers 100% protection but has 2 rounds cooldown.
2. Spiderman’s passive “Great Responsibility.”
Always active, but protects randomly.

Items which redirect single-target-attacks:
1. Item “Protect.”
2. Svalinn Defender (gadget obtained from deploy drops).
3. Paladin Array (buyable gadget after researching “Preemptive Defenses”).

Setting up force fields
Heroes who can set up Force Fields:
1. Iron Man’s “Deflector Shield” (generates force field only for him).
2. Dr. Strange’s “Shield of the Seraphim” (generates force field for a single ally).
3. Invisible Woman’s “Force Field” (generates force field for all allies).

Although Invisible Woman can generate shield to all allies, the shield does not absorb as much damage as Iron Man’s or Dr. Strange’s. Consider equipping your agent with additional force-field-generating gadgets.

Items and gadgets which set-up shields:
1. Norton shield. This item removes any kind of debuffs and prevents new application for 4 turns or until the shield taken down. Unfortunately, this shield does not absorb much damage and does not stack with Force Field Generator. The good news is, this shield is stackable with some other shields such as Mirror Field (Have not tried with other kinds of shields yet. Inputs will be very much appreciated).
2. Force Field Generator (all allies).
3. Magnetic Field Generator (all allies).
4. Construct Matrix (all allies).
5. Mirror Field Generator (one ally).

Evasion enhancers
Heroes with evasion enhancing abilities:
1. Cyclops’ “Evasion Maneuvers.” Gives “Agile” status to all allies.
2. Early Warning Detector gadget. Gives “Agile” status to all allies.
3. Storm’s “Protective Shroud.” High chance to dodge single target attacks for all allies.
4. Daredevil’s “Radar Sense.” Self-buff, highly increases Daredevil’s evasion along with his accuracy.
5. Spiderman’s “Spider Sense.” Self-buff, highly increases Spiderman’s evasion and gives extra turn when attacked.
6. Invisible Woman’s “Invisible.” Self-buff, high chance to dodge singe target attacks.
7. Kitty Pryde’s “Phased Attack.” Self-buff, gives infinite evasion (a.k.a invulnerable) against all attacks until she is de-phased.

Evasion enhancing gadgets and items:
1. Digital Decoy (all allies). Dodges up to two hits in one attack.
2. Evasion Patch (one ally). Increases evasion.
3. Hologram Generator (one ally). Dodges up to two hits in one attack.

Now, those were general defensive ideas that you can employ to avoid taking any damage. However, people often say that “Offense is the best defense.” With that in mind, we also need to finish up enemies quickly and here’s what I usually do to achieve “Perfect Strategy”:
Team: Agent (Scrapper equipped with Quantum Jumper, other gadgets may change depending on situation), Captain America (Tactician. Yes, I still use him despite he’s being nerfed) and Thor (Blaster).
Item needed: Tactical Strike (gives additional turn for single target attacks).
First turn, (usually) CA uses Shield Guard. If my agent follows immediately without enemies in between, either he attacks (to weaken the enemies, sometimes with “Shield Throw” to increase Thor’s damage later) or (sometimes) gives “Tactical Strike” to Thor.
Second turn, in case CA uses Shield Guard, my agent may give Mirror Field to CA or (usually) attacks any available Infiltrator (or weaken enemies that might not be killed by Thor later). Otherwise, he uses Quantum Jumper followed by Thor accumulating “Might of Mjolnir” (MoM) buffs (Empowering Strike and/or Inspire Bravery).
n-th turn, hopes that CA dodges all attacks.
Thor’s turn, unleash his “Summon Thunder”, hopefully ending the battle (along with One-kills and Overkills). The rest of my team will finish off any enemies left. In case of multiple-waves-battle, my Thor may either keeps accumulating MoM buffs (in preparation for the second wave) or uses “Hammer Throw” targeted to enemies whose turn is in-between my units. Either way, hope that CA dodges the remaining attacks for the rest of the round. If Thor has “Tactical Strike”, he can acquire another MoM buffs or my other team members may either give Thor now.

I realize that the above strategy has many “if”s and “or”s. The main reason is because the strategy needs to heavily adapt depending on how the turns are arranged. In case things go wrong, can still aim for overkills~

Finally, good luck agent!

Footnotes:
1. A turn is an opportunity for a unit to make a move. A round is a collection of turns from all units still present in the battle. A new round begins after all units finish taking turns.