Marvel Heroes New Player’s Guide

Marvel Heroes New Player’s Guide by CptnObvious

So I’m eating lunch figured I’d write up a little bit of a guide for new players. Some of these things I wish I knew when I was new. I’ll try to make it as short and sweet as possible as I know I can be a bit lengthy in my posts.

After reading it however I think I failed in the ‘short’ part :) Should still make for a good read for new players though as this will end up saving you a lot of time and complications.

What hero should I play?

After playing many heroes to 50+, most of them not in the top 5 ‘most powerful’, I would simply say play the hero you like the most. Regardless of any of the problems you may read about in the hero threads keep in mind no matter what people will always complain. I mean if you go to ripoffreport.com you can type in the name of any company and find complaints about them. So don’t take it too seriously. The only exception to this rule I would say is Iron Man. Wait till he gets reworked.

The one I have the most fun with is Cyclops even though people constantly complain about him and he has a very hard time in Red Terminals. I would put him at the top of my most fun to play list though as he fits my style of play very well. So just pick a hero you like the most and try to enjoy it for what it is, not for what its not.

Here’s a quick description of each of the free starter heroes. (The difficulties are assumed post level 25. After you finish the story)

Starter Heroes:

Thing: Thing is tougher than the other starters. He is melee and does some good damage and can knock creatures up in the air for crowd control. He can also taunt enemies off of his fellow heroes. He is best known for his awesome team damage buff. He relies on high defense and hit points to survive. Low Difficulty

Hawkeye: Hawk is a ranged DPS hero. He has some nice single target damage and a little bit of area damage. He can also make enemies do less damage and has an arrow that will taunt enemies to attack it. He can remove hostile area effects. He relies on a high dodge skill to survive. Medium Difficulty

Scarlet Witch: Scarlet is also a ranged DPS hero. She focuses more on area attacks. She can cast area spells that will confuse enemies to attack each other and she can also debuff enemies so everyone does more damage to them. She can also remove hostile area effects. She relies on her crowd control skills to survive be it confusing them, fearing them or slowing their movement. High Difficulty

Storm: Storm is another ranged DPS hero. She does some very good area damage and single target damage. She can fly around while summoning lightning to strike her targets. She is not as versatile as Scarlet but is very deadly. She does not get much in the way of dodge or crowd control as she relies on her regenerative powers to survive. Her best defense is a good offense. High Difficulty

Daredevil: Daredevil is melee DPS. He has some nice melee and mid ranged attacks. He can throw his clubs or leap into combat. He buffs himself with dodge and crit chance. He can also debuff nearby enemies to take more damage. Many of his attacks slow enemies movement speed, attack speed or knock them down. He relies on a high dodge skill to survive. Medium Difficulty

What should I do first?

Hit escape. Click Help. Read all the tabs.

Once finished with that. Click the options button and look at the Key Bindings tab. Either learn where they are or set the keys you are used to using for attacks.

I can’t express how important this step is. There’s a lot of helpful information here.

How should I build my hero?

To this I would say don’t try to find the ultimate most powerful build. Play with things yourself. Test some skills. Have fun learning your hero. You get one free retcon (power reset) potion for doing the story and you will find many later as drops and from fortune cards. I would suggest playing with all the powers and skills and not using your retcon till at least level 40 once you have had time to play with all the powers.

I don’t feel like I have enough slots on my power bar at higher levels

Yes we all feel the same way. There is a nice trick to helping use more powers. In the Key bindings area there are default hot keys set to F1 F2 F3 F5 and F6. I moved these to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on the number keys.

How this works: If you open your powers tab (P by default) then hover over a power, and hit F1, that power is now bound to the F1 key. You can do this with other powers all the way through F6.

Now every time you hit one of the F1-F6 keys your right mouse button power will change to that power.

Putting a power here that buffs your character would not be a good idea as you will be swapping that power out a lot. So keep buffs/shields on your hotbar. You can swap out an AoE attack for a single target attack by simply hitting F1 or F2. Or you can quickly swap a monster debuff, cast it, then swap back to your attack skill. This comes in very handy later on.

This is also why I moved these keys to 1-6 (above qwerty) cause it’s easier to hit them.

What should I do with all the gear I don’t need?

Donate it! Don’t sell it! It takes a very long time to get your 3 vendors leveled up. I highly suggest getting your crafter to at least level 10 first so you can put cores into your costume. Honestly though I would max the crafter out to 20 before donating to the armor or weapon vendor though. Without leveled vendors, money doesn’t mean a whole lot. So donate your gear don’t sell it.

What do vendors do when you level them?

The crafter vendor will both upgrade crafting materials (3-1 ratio) and downgrade materials (3-1 ratio). So you can turn 3 lower ones into a higher one or turn a higher one into 3 lower ones. The ability to downgrade materials was pure genius as later on you will only find high level ones and may want to downgrade them to use for lower level heroes.

He can also put buffs on your costume like +crit chance, +life% bonus among many others. He can upgrade blue gear to purple which is VERY handy at low levels. He can unbind items and artifacts from one hero so you can equip it with another hero. He can transform a purple that is useable by another hero to your current hero. He is the most useful vendor at the moment.

Both the armor vendor and weapon vendor will begin selling better items at higher levels when you refresh them. Sometimes a blue, sometimes a purple, sometimes both. The weapon vendor will also have a chance to sell a random artifact once he hits level 18. So typically he is maxed out after the crafter vendor currently.

Gazillion said they do have plans to increase the use of the vendors in the future so expect more to come.

After completing the story, what should I do?

I want to quickly say I thought the story was great. First time I ever played a game and wanted MORE cut scenes as I enjoyed them all. And the story is perfectly in line for the Marvel Universe. Very well done. I very much so got the “Our Princess is in another Castle” feeling at the end. Can’t wait to see an expansion to the story line!

So after you complete the story there are color coded terminals in town. These are where you will spend most of your post – story mode life.

Yellow Terminal This is the PvP terminal. Currently not available.

Green Terminal This is the daily terminal for easy mode. When you join you will possibly join others be default, which can be turned off in the options of the game by unchecking ‘Join party when entering instance’ in gameplay.

The bad guys don’t hit too hard and die fairly quickly. They have a normal drop rate for loot and experience. Killing the villain at the end of each one for the first time each day yields 1 cube shard. Total 9 per day.

Red Terminal This is the daily terminal for hard mode. When you join you will be always alone, unless you are in a team beforehand. You will not join with random people.

The bad guys start hitting very hard and Villains can kill most heroes in 1-3 hits. They are soloable by most any hero, as I have done mine with Cyclops which people say isn’t possible. But of course some heroes do them easier than others. Drop rates for better gear are much higher and experience is even higher. Again each Villain will yield 1 cube shard for the first kill of the day. 9 more cube shards.

Blue Terminal This is the ‘team’ terminal. If you join alone you will not get into another team. Just like red terminals you need to have your team premade upon entering.

This one is a bit lengthy. There will be a middle area filled with baddies and 4 directions to go filled with more baddies and a portal at the end of each area. Hitting the portals will increase the power of the bad guys. Killing bad guys will decrease their power over time. Some people say to not hit all 4 until you get to the Villain, but this just makes him harder. If you hit each one in order the boss will be easier to beat.

Once you hit all 4 portals you will get a random Villain to defeat at the end including ones that are not in the Green or Red Terminals. At the moment not a lot of people play this one as most will just opt to join the purple terminal.

Purple Terminal Currently this is Midtown Manhattan. You can only join this solo at the moment as they are working on allowing to enter as a group. Upon entering you will be in a zone with up to 9 other players. You don’t have to group with them as you can just play next to them or if you want to share team buffs you can opt to make a group.

This is a wide open area that never ends. Lots of groups will spawn to kill and random Villain groups will spawn on the map. The experience is increased over Green Terminals but lower than Red Terminals. The drop rates are also very nice in here as you will find many artifacts and cosmic items (yellow gear!).

What do I do with cube shards?

Clea sells fortune cards for 10 shards per card. Shards are also used to join a PvP team which is not implemented at the moment.

What do eternity splinters do?

Eternity Splinters are your way to get new heroes for free. Adam Warlock sells the heroes. He is next to Gambit who is currently the store vendor. They may also be used to buy other items that are temporarily being sold for splinters.

At some point you may want to have a nice stash of splinters saved up just for new heroes that get released or special gear that may be sold.

What hero should I get next?

Well this is going to be different for every person. If you REALLY want to play Spiderman you may want to just save 600 splinters. If you don’t care who you get next or just want to play a random hero then buy the random hero box for 175 splinters.

If you mathematically want to obtain every hero in the game as cheap as possible then buying random hero box till you get 13-15 heroes and buying the rest by saving for them is the fastest way to obtain them all.

Is the game worth putting money into?

This again will change varying on who you ask. My answer is yes. You may not want to wait to save for that Spiderman or Hulk with Eternity Splinters. Buying a hero you really want has been well worth it for many if not all of us who have done so.

Costumes have a very very low drop rate, as they should. Buying a costume is WELL worth the money spent if you want to have a new look!

What am I missing out on if I don’t put money in the game?

Nothing other than cosmetic features like costumes or follow along pets that don’t have any combat value. All content and powers are free to obtain otherwise. Paying real money is strictly optional.

Will people look down on me if I don’t put money in the game?

No. More people to play with equals more fun for all.

What is the community like?

A game with “Marvel” in the name is going to naturally attract a lot of people from the comic fan base. People in this community have thus far been much friendlier and a joy to play with than many other games. Expect a friendly and helpful community both in the forums and in the game.

Hope that helps any newcomers. If you feel I missed anything please let me know.