Monday, December 31, 2012

Best SR Bruiser Decks

In Marvel War of Heroes in each alignment there is always a best deck for each rarity. Of course while certain realms excel in different areas at any given moment, as new cards release the meta shifts. Inevitably all decks shift and change.

Best SR Bruiser Deck - Defense:

1st Card: Unleashed Power Thing - 9097 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Bruiser Cards.
2nd Card: Unleashed Power Thing - 9097 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Bruiser Cards.
3rd Card: Unleashed Power Thing - 9097 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Bruiser Cards.
4th Card: Unleashed Power Thing - 9097 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Bruiser Cards.
5th Card: Unleashed Power Thing - 9097 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Bruiser Cards.

His Power Level is over 9000! That being said, Unleashed Power Thing is the best defensive card in the SR class of card. He has the highest defense stats as well as the best buff a player could ask for. Realistically, I wouldn't expect any SR offenses to beat this straight up without having highly leveled skills.

Best SR Bruiser Deck - Attack:

1st Card:  Son of Odin Thor - 7922 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of your Bruiser Cards.
2nd Card: Son of Odin Thor - 7922 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of your Bruiser Cards.
3rd Card: Advanced Intel. Ultron - 8406 Atk - Remarkably degrade ATK/DEF of opponents cards.
4th Card: Logan's Spirit Wolverine - 8694 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK/DEF of this Card.
5th Card: Logan's Spirit Wolverine - 8694 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK/DEF of this Card.

This deck is just kind of painful. Son of Odin Thor's stats are just so low, same with SR Cyclops. Both are the only two cards with a solid buff. So instead we balance this out by popping in an AI Ultron since his buff is solid and his stats are superior. Logan's Spirit Wolverine beats out Hulk in the bottom spot because Wolverine actually brings a buff to the table where Hulk doesn't have one. A reasonable alternate to this deck is to use three AI Ultron in the top spots. 

Overall:
The fact that SR Hulk has no skill really kills Bruisers offensive power. Logan's Spirit Wolverine is a great wing card, but the rest of the cards are slightly lacking. Defensively bruiser is no joke at the SR level though so it balances things out.

Best SR Tactics Decks

In Marvel War of Heroes in each alignment there is always a best deck for each rarity. Of course while certain realms excel in different areas at any given moment, as new cards release the meta shifts. Inevitably all decks shift and change.

Best SR Tactics Deck - Defense:

1st Card: Vibranium Shield Cap. America - 8921 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Tactics Cards.
2nd Card: Vibranium Shield Cap. America - 8921 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Tactics Cards.
3rd Card: Vibranium Shield Cap. America - 8921 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Tactics Cards.
4th Card: Vibranium Shield Cap. America - 8921 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Tactics Cards.
5th Card: Vibranium Shield Cap. America - 8921 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Tactics Cards.

Easiest deck in the game to figure out. V. Shield Cap has pushing 9k defense and the ideal boost to pure tactics defense. This is the second best defense within the SR level in Marvel War of Heroes only beaten out by Unleashed Power Thing in Bruiser, and even then just barely.

Best SR Tactics Deck - Attack:

1st Card: Arsenal Punisher - 8356 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of your Tactics Cards.
2nd Card: Arsenal Punisher - 8356 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of your Tactics Cards.
3rd Card: Arsenal Punisher - 8356 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of your Tactics Cards.
4th Card: Arsenal Punisher - 8356 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of your Tactics Cards.
5th Card: Arsenal Punisher - 8356 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of your Tactics Cards.

Another easy one for Tactics. Aresenal Punisher offers the highest SR attack in Tactics while maintaining the proper buffs. A player can sub in Executioner Punisher in the last two spots for a bit higher base, but I really dislike the debuff to speed defense on that card since very few players will be using a speed defense. Players can also use SR Iron Man in the mix if they want, he is a solid card both offensively and defensively.

Overall:
Tactics as an alignment really promotes stacking a single card, this is because normally they have a card that is better than all the rest. While most realms have a card that either has the highest stats or the best buff, Tactics at this level promotes single card stacking because its best stat cards normally have the best buff.

Best SR Speed Decks

In Marvel War of Heroes in each alignment there is always a best deck for each rarity. Of course while certain realms excel in different areas at any given moment, as new cards release the meta shifts. Inevitably all decks shift and change.

Best SR Speed Deck - Defense:

1st Card: Shapeshift Assassin Mystique - 7440 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Speed Cards.
2nd Card: Shapeshift Assassin Mystique - 7440 Def - Remarkably intensify DEF of Speed Cards.
3rd Card: Centurion Nova-Prime Nova - 8228 Def - Remarkably intensify ATK/DEF of Speed Cards
4th Card: Centurion Nova-Prime Nova - 8228 Def - Remarkably intensify ATK/DEF of Speed Cards
5th Card: Centurion Nova-Prime Nova - 8228 Def - Remarkably intensify ATK/DEF of Speed Cards

Mystique is the only speed card holding the defense boost for pure speed, but her defensive stat is a bit low. Because of that I prefer to stack three Prime Novas instead of the normal two for wings. His buff is effective and his defensive stats are more solid than other speed cards at the SR level. It's also acceptable to stack five Novas.

Best SR Speed Deck - Attack:

1st Card: Fire Blast Human Torch - 7793 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of your Speed Cards.
2nd Card: November Foxtrot Nick Fury - 8372 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of all your Cards.
3rd Card: November Foxtrot Nick Fury - 8372 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of all your Cards.
4th Card: Vampire Hunter Blade - 8840 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of this Card.
5th Card: Vampire Hunter Blade - 8840 Atk - Remarkably intensify ATK of this Card.

This Marvel War of Heroes deck was a bit trickier. Honestly I have reserves about using event cards like Nick Fury in builds, but I see plenty of him floating about. An alternative to this deck would be to use two Torches and two Blades. Blades stats are too high to ignore pushing closing to 9k atk. Although his buff is self, it is a significant boost as well.

Overall:
Defensively the SR Speed cards are weak. Reasonably a player could also grab three Nova, two Mystique, and two Blade, and use three Nova on attack and defense for solid stats in both.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Assault Cards Training Two

Well, it appears that Marvel will change the cards used as Assault cards for each Shield Training. This is interesting versus Rage of Bahamut having dedicated cards. This method puts players in a position to spend more money since which cards are Event Cards fluctuate.

For this event the Assault cards are:

Hell Bike Ghost Rider: 1000% Boost base, 2500% Boost when fused.

Marvel War of Heroes hell bike Ghost Rider

Red Hulk: 500% Boost base, 1200% Boost when fused.

 Marvel war of Heroes Red Hulk

Wrecker: 200% Boost base, 600% Boost when fused.

Marvel War of heroes Wrecker

Slasher Sabertooth: 300% Boost base, 1000% Boost when fused.

Marvel War of Heroes Slasher Sabretooth



Chaos Magic Scarlet Witch: 250% Boost base, 700% Boost when fused.

Marvel War of Heroes Chaos Magic Scarlet Witch

No matter what people say. You need to take down the walls and these cards help you do it. Taking down a wall will give you double the points when defeating players than if the wall were still up. Because of this it virtually always makes sense to take down the wall.




Thursday, December 27, 2012

Shield Enforcement Training Two

Shield Enforcement Training Two will operate under the same principles as the previous Shield Enforcement Training. The top reward for this time through is an SSR Spider Man which is a bit disappointing because the previous Shield Training had a Speed SSR as the top reward as well.

Bruiser players are totally left out in this event which can be either frustrating or wonderful for them. Since new cards tend to sell for a premium, players who are bruiser will get some nice cards to trade for the ones they want.

Since this event is so quickly following an event where players either depleted or gathered large amounts of PP, we can expect there to be some shake ups in the ranking depending on what players were able to accumulate.

Shield Enforcement Training v2

Individual Ranking
Individual ranking is based purely on the valor you attain during Shield Enforcement Training. It is common that more powerful opponents will give more points. Valor can also be increased if the player has the attack leader, defense leader, vice leader, and alliance leader rank within their orders. If a player is normally worth 100 valor, an alliance leader will be worth 150. You must win a battle in order to gain points, losses will yield nothing. If you are not powerful enough to attack alliance members for points, you can also attack the shield barrier for points. Look for members with 10 defense, these players are worth the full amount of points no matter how many times you attack them.

Alliance Ranking
Alliance Ranking is also based on the valor attained during Shield Enforcement Training. The major difference is that it is the team accumulation of points and there is an overall victory/defeat at stake. In order to rank highly as an alliance it is important to coordinate attacks so players can make the most of their attack power. You cannot carry alliance ranking solo to a high rank, it requires contribution from all members. Victories give additional points to alliance ranking, so it's important to win the wars you start.

Barriers
Barriers are built before the Shield Enforcement Training and cost silver, so donate to your order so they can build barriers. Barriers cut the points enemies receive in half. Once the barrier is down the opposing team will gain full point values. Because of the heavy difference, if your order does not have a barrier, it will lose almost every match. It is extremely important for barriers to be up. Barriers can be taken down rapidly through the use of assault cards.

Defense Leader
Before alliance members can be attacked, the defense leader must be defeated. Because of this it is important to test to make sure you can defeat an alliances defense leader. If you are unable to beat a defense leader, you should save your attack and power packs until the next Enforcement Training. If you want to defeat a defense leader easily, have everybody attack him. Normally his defense will drop rapidly and his defense points won't sustain his cards.

ISO-8 Shards
You will gain ISO-8 Shards for participating in battle, so be sure to participate every time to maximize cards packs. Even if you are only able to attack with a weaker deck once during a battle make sure to do it in order to gain shards for card packs. Shards are given out based on the damage you do, but you will gain a minimum of one no matter how much damage you do. Afterward be sure to share shards with people in order go gain extras.

Tips/Tricks
Here are some quick tips for this event that should hold true. They are taken from my experience in Rage and even if twists are added to the event should hold true here.

Tip 1: Defense for the win
If your defense leader is rocking a mammoth defense, most Alliances won't even fight back. The defense leader is the first experience they have battling your alliance and if they can't break through him, they just save their power packs for the next battle.

Tip 2: Kick inactives
It is better to have nobody in the spot in the alliance than an inactive player. Inactive players are just targets for the other alliance. They use them to accumulate points easily.

Tip 3: Take down the walls
The walls reduce point gains, taking them down doubles point gain. If there are no wall breaker cards this can be a daunting task, but is still easily accomplished through coordination. Lets say it takes every member of an alliance two Power Packs worth of attacks before the wall comes down. Once the wall comes down, they will receive double points. So each PP they use will be worth double the points. It only takes two until they break even, and then they gain double points per pack after.

A lot of people are hesitant to attack the wall, but if you have the juice, burn it to the ground. If the other team doesn't and you do, it's virtually impossible for them to keep up.

Tip 4: Coordinate
This is the toughest one for alliances to accomplish and are normally done through Line or Palingro. If the entire order attacks the wall, it goes down very fast and then you achieve double points from the opponents you're attacking. It also ensures that your team will be victorious since an alliance with 5 members on will have a tough time against an alliance with 20 members on.

Tip 5: Target the titles
Attack leaders, defense leaders, alliance leaders all have bonus stats as a result of their rank, but also give bonus points. If you are able to easily beat the leaders, farm them for points. Keep an eye out though because after being repetitively farmed they will be reduced in value and switching targets might be viable.

That's all I got on Shield Enforcement Training until it releases. These tips should work no matter how they decide to configure the event but I'd bet that this will mirror Holy Wars almost exactly.




Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Best Rare Tactics Decks

In Marvel War of Heroes in each alignment there is always a best deck for each rarity. Of course while certain realms excel in different areas at any given moment, as new cards release the meta shifts. Inevitably all decks shift and change.

Best Rare Tactics Deck - Defense:

1st Card: Bucky Barnes - 6602 Def - Notably intensify defense on your Tactics Cards.
2nd Card: Bucky Barnes - 6602 Def - Notably intensify defense on your Tactics Cards.
3rd Card: Bucky Barnes - 6602 Def - Notably intensify defense on your Tactics Cards.
4th Card: Bucky Barnes - 6602 Def - Notably intensify defense on your Tactics Cards.
5th Card: Bucky Barnes - 6602 Def - Notably intensify defense on your Tactics Cards.

Defensively Bucky Barnes is the best card for tactics in rare. Bucky offers the highest stat with the best buff with no cards that really compare making him the best selection for all five cards. For those who don't recognize the name from the comics, you may know him as Winter Soldier.

Best Rare Tactics Deck - Attack:

1st Card: Jigsaw - 6393 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of your Tactics Cards.
2nd Card: Jigsaw - 6393 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of your Tactics Cards.
3rd Card: Jigsaw - 6393 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of your Tactics Cards.
4th Card: Ultimate Fist Iron Fist - 6892 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of this Card.
5th Card: Ultimate Fist Iron Fist - 6892 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of this Card.

This deck is trickier and actually has some variations. Iron Fist actually has a high usage skill and has extremely offensive stats. Because of this, a player could place three Ultimate Fists in the deck and it would balance really well. There is also the Rare Hawkeye that has 6.7k attack and offers a boost to attack and defense of tactics making him an option to replace Jigsaw in the top three spots. Overall I believe that 3 Jigsaw just beats it out.

Overall:
I feel Invisible Woman on defense and Jigsaw's with Iron Fist on defense are the best deck. Although tactics has a lot of options offensively, they don't have any solid ones defensively outside of Invis Woman. 

Best Rare Bruiser Decks

In Marvel War of Heroes in each alignment there is always a best deck for each rarity. Of course while certain realms excel in different areas at any given moment, as new cards release the meta shifts. Inevitably all decks shift and change.

Best Rare Bruiser Deck Defense:

1st Card: Bedrock Think - 6924 Def - Notably intensifies defense on your Bruiser Cards.
2nd Card: Bedrock Think - 6924 Def - Notably intensifies defense on your Bruiser Cards.
3rd Card: Bedrock Think - 6924 Def - Notably intensifies defense on your Bruiser Cards.
4th Card: Bedrock Think - 6924 Def - Notably intensifies defense on your Bruiser Cards.
5th Card: Bedrock Think - 6924 Def - Notably intensifies defense on your Bruiser Cards.

There is no reason to even look at other cards if you're looking for the best rare defense. Bedrock Thing has the highest stats out of the Rare cards defensively and comes equipped with the best buff possible for rarity and alignment. I would talk about other notable options, but this is the card you should be aiming for. Period.

Best Rare Bruiser Deck Attack:

1st Card: Mjolnir Thor - 6312 Atk - Notably intensify attacks on your Bruiser Cards.
2nd Card: Mjolnir Thor - 6312 Atk - Notably intensify attacks on your Bruiser Cards.
3rd Card: Mjolnir Thor - 6312 Atk - Notably intensify attacks on your Bruiser Cards.
4th Card: Iron Monger - 6699 Atk - Notably intensify attacks on your Cards.
5th Card: Iron Monger - 6699 Atk - Notably intensify attacks on your Cards.

It is arguable that you should use three Iron Monger in this set up based on the stat increase and how unlikely it is that three skills go off. As a matter of preference I always choose to stack three of the card who's buff I want to go off. Since Iron Monger offers a boost to ALL cards, its buff is significantly weaker making it less powerful than Thor in most cases.

Overall:
Within the rare class, Bruisers have the best decks. Their defense is the best and their offense is extremely solid.





Best Rare Speed Decks

For each alignment there is always a best deck for each rarity. Of course while certain realms excel in different areas at any given moment, as new cards release the meta shifts. For example at this moment the Ultra Rare Spider Man makes speed alignment the most powerful offensively, but as soon as a new higher damage UR comes out with a better buff, that will change. So, keep that in mind when you read this article that although it will be updated, there could be a new card released.

Best Rare Speed Deck - Defense:

1st Card: Maria Hill - 6730 Def - Notably intensify DEF of your Speed Cards.
2nd Card: Maria Hill - 6730 Def - Notably intensify DEF of your Speed Cards.
3rd Card: Maria Hill - 6730 Def - Notably intensify DEF of your Speed Cards.
4th Card: Maria Hill - 6730 Def - Notably intensify DEF of your Speed Cards.
5th Card: Maria Hill - 6730 Def - Notably intensify DEF of your Speed Cards.

Maria Hill is the most solid out of defensive cards for the speed alignment at the moment. She offers the highest speed defense along with the most powerful buff for speed. In the absence of Maria Hill since she was an event reward, you can use Infinite Lawyer Daredevil which has lower stats, but the same buff. It is also notable that if you want to keep costs low on your deck, you can use two Nova Corps Nova in the last two spots as wings. Nova has solid stats for attack and defense.

Best Rare Speed Deck - Attack:

1st Card: Ball of Fire Human Torch - 6393 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of your Speed Cards.
2nd Card: Ball of Fire Human Torch - 6393 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of your Speed Cards.
3rd Card: Ball of Fire Human Torch - 6393 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of your Speed Cards.
4th Card: Ball of Fire Human Torch - 6393 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of your Speed Cards.
5th Card: Ball of Fire Human Torch - 6393 Atk - Notably intensify ATK of your Speed Cards.

Much like Maria hill, Ball of Fire Human Torch offers the best attack power with the best buff. If need be it is possible to also use Nova's in the last two spots but it will reduce the power of the deck. Ideally you want to stack human torches as best you can offensively in a speed deck of the rare variety. Also, Morbius can be used in the last two spots if you wish to debuff bruisers, but there is little to no point in this at the rare level.

Overall:
Speed decks at the rare level are very average but significantly more powerful in defense than offense because of Maria Hill.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

A Jingle and a Tingle Stocking

 Marvel War of Heroes Jingle and a Tingle Stocking

Ok, I decided to make an emergency post on this item after I found out somebody thought it was a card to sell for 10,000 Silver. The holiday stocking in Marvel War of Heroes is going to be able to be fused with the stocking given on the last day. It is meant as a surprise for the holiday and will morph into a usable card.

This means hold onto it. I would wager that it turns into a Spider-Man card because, well, the PP on the stocking in conjunction with the use of the word 'tingle' in the name. Hopefully it is an event card since I doubt it will be considerably powerful since every player will be getting one, except for my friend who sold his.

The stocking card cannot be traded, nor can it be gifted meaning we won't know the quality of card until the last day of the campaign.


Thursday, December 20, 2012

Don't Share Non-Enraged Bosses

I know this is a direct contradiction of what I posted yesterday, but hey, things change. All during this event I never had an issue with too many bosses in my queue. Since the enraged bosses came out, my queue has been filled with crap while people keep the enraged bosses for themselves.

At this point, I wouldn't recommend even attacking your own non-enraged bosses, because nobody will help, and you may be kicked from peoples team roster or your alliance. The other day I removed one guy from my team for constantly sharing crap bosses and clogging my queue.

Only attack enraged bosses, only share enraged bosses. They are the only ones you're getting help with.

You've been warned.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

X-Men Event Enraged Enemies

Today Marvel War of Heroes began the enemy vengeance campaign and we can expect it to shake things up quite a bit. Enemy vengeance refers to the fact occasionally Magneto or Juggernaut will be enraged with glowing red eyes. These enemies are stronger than the other other versions and drop purple shards instead of Green or Red. Another fun fact is that you do 1.5x damage to them, meaning you gain 1.5x points.

For a lot of players who have been waiting enhancing their Professor X's, Cyclops', and Psylocke's this will help them rise to the top. Not only do they have finished high level bonus damage cards, but they will also be doing almost double damage on top of it.

Purple Shards offer some extra prizes that the other shards don't as well. Not only is there now a chance for a full personal power pack to drop, but there is also a chance for Ultimate Card Pack tickets, SR Ultron, and SSR Annihilus.

Marvel War of Heroes Annihilus

How to maximize now?

When I get an enraged boss I damage him down to just over half way, then I share him. The enraged boss will net team members 1.5x points, and it greatly increases my purple shards. If I'm able to get purple shard bonuses from two enraged bosses for the attack power I would spend on one by sharing it with my team, that's a win for all of us.

On the home stretch here, I would advise all players to share their enraged bosses once they hit 50%. The reason for this is because those purple shards are valuable and can get you additional power packs, and doing over 50% damage ensures you the star agent reward. Alliance members are highly likely to attack enraged bosses because of the double damage bonus and not getting charged the five attack points.

Attack your other bosses with a weak card and share them so players with no bosses up can attack them, otherwise, ignore them unless you're attack capped. The extra bonus from enraged makes them the bosses to target.

Good luck on the home stretch!

Monday, December 17, 2012

Marvel Perfect Fusions

So you don't want to spend the silver to do a perfect fusion? You're probably wrong. The only reason it's probably is because to a certain extent, fusing rares perfectly doesn't really have a point since they are such a low value to begin with.

What is a perfect fusion? 

A perfect fusion occurs when a player fully boosts and maxes the mastery of a card before fusing it with another of the same type that is also fully boosted and mastered. In Marvel War of Heroes Perfect fusions are necessary to hold the value of a card. Realistically, if cards haven't been mastered before fusion, the stat difference is negligible. The price difference of the cards on the other hand is substantial. This is partially because players have a perceived value of cards and perfection is so easy to attain that anything less is unacceptable.

Imperfect fusion is accomplished when one or both cards are not maxed in level or maxed in mastery. If the condition of both cards max level, both cards max mastery isn't met, this is considered imperfect.

Not maxing mastery

In Marvel War of Heroes not maxing mastery causes a mild decrease in price, if the player even notices. The stat difference tends to be so slim that most players won't pick up on if a card was or wasn't mastered properly. If a player does notice you can expect the player to either become completely disinterested in the card, or wanting a significant price drop, you can expect 10% or more in price drop.

Not maxing levels

This is the most awful mistake a person can make with a card. This is a way to completely ruin a card in most cases. For example, I don't care what the price is in most cases, I will not buy a card that has not been boosted to its highest level before fusing. The reason for this is boosting a card to max level will yield 10% of its stats carried over to its final forms, even one level less than max will reduce it to 5% of its stats carried over to its final form. These cards just aren't worth the decrease in stats. 

When to do/not do a perfect evolution

If you aren't doing perfect evolution I'm hoping you're dealing with something in the rare quality or lower. Anything in the SR, SSR, UR quality should always be a perfect fusion. In the rare quality I also often advise a perfect fusion since it will result in a much more powerful fusion and allow you to use the card longer.

Moral of the story

Fuse your cards perfectly if they are SR or higher. Anything less than perfection will lose a lot of potential buyers and lose a significant portion of price. Personally I'm sick of people trying to trade me imperfectly fused cards, because once it's imperfectly fused, it's garbage in my eyes.



Friday, December 14, 2012

Best X-Men Raider Card?

Well, the results are in (at least for what I was working on) and the best X-Men Raider card for this event is actually two Xaviers fused into their final form.

Best X-Men Raider card Marvel war of heroes

The reason for this comes down to price, cost per use, and overall usefulness. Now, I know some people don't care about price, but it really is kind of a big deal. UR Cyclops are going for absurd prices at the moment and you can get two Xavier for less than one Cyclops. Since two Xavier bring you to 1800% boost and one Cyclops brings you to 1000% there is very little reason to go the Cyclops route. In fact, two Cyclops only bring you to 2000% boost. Making it only slightly better than Xavier.

Now, cost per use also plays a role. Assuming you have 320 attack power, which would be a significant amount. You can attack 20x with Cyclops (we'll ignore the+5s for easy math). So lets say a total of 40000% in boost. With Xavier you can attack 22 (with 12pts to spare) times, once again ignore the +5s. This would be a total of 39600% in boost. With higher stats Cyclops is the clear winner here, but personally not by enough to warrant paying double.

The final kicker though is the overall usefulness. Ultra Rare Cyclops has a Degrade to opponents attack and defense of tactics alignment cards. I believe this is the worst skill out of any UR card in the game at the moment. Xavier has an attack boost to tactics alignment, the best buff for offensive tactics decks.

Overall, I wouldn't even risk picking up an UR Cyclops for fear of having to try to get rid of it after the event is over. Xavier is hands down the best X-Men Raider Card.

You've been warned about buying Cyclops!



Maximizing Points for X-Men

Players during the X-Men event can expect to gain points in one of three ways: Damage Bonus, Star Bonus, and Killing Blow.

Damage Bonus
Damage bonus pays out at roughly 1% of the damage you do. For every hundred thousand damage, you gain one thousand points. The points are slightly over one percent, but it's close to there.

Star Bonus
Star bonus pays out a large bonus as long as you did the most damage on the boss. I'm not sure if there's a specific percentage but for me it has been paying out quite a bit. This is an important bonus to hit if you want to maximize points. The star bonus is roughly 10% of the damage bonus.

Killing Blow
Killing blow bonus is paid out for dealing the final strike to a boss. This bonus appears to be set and increases based on the strength of the boss. It's about 50% of the star bonus.

Quick, inaccurate math
Because of the way the event distributes points it makes quite a bit of sense to never ask for help unless you absolutely need it. Lets say you have 100 attack power and lets say for arguments sake you can do five attacks totaling 500,500 damage with that 100 attack power.

Scenario 1:
500,000 HP Boss comes up. You use all 100 attack power to destroy the boss. Likely point reward goes something like 5000+ shards, 500+ star bonus, 250+ Finishing blow bonus.

Scenario 2:
Four 500,000 HP Bosses come up. You attack each boss once, and one boss twice. Your team members finish the bosses off. Likely points go something like 5000+ shards, no bonuses. You would actually be better off with only one boss in scenario one.

The two scenarios are rough examples so please don't jump out and say 'zomg Star bonus would be 2000 for that boss!' or something like that. It's just to illustrate the point that taking down one boss by yourself earns more points than taking down three bosses with your allies. It's a flaw in the system.

ISO-8 Shards
To equalize that flaw, the players will earn more ISO-8 Shards if they take down all three bosses, it is arguable that this would increase your chances of 1/2 Power Packs and therefor would yield higher points overall. This is absolutely true. Since ISO-8 Shards are payed out for defeating bosses it makes sense to eliminate as many as you can

A certain amount of theory could be done based on the idea that killing more bosses and gaining more shards will result in more power packs meaning there will be more overall points for the player. Unfortunately I don't think it would hold true. The amount of shards given out appears to be so small unless the boss is defeated very quickly that any bonus received wouldn't be worth it. When I attacked bosses that had over one million life for one attack (Roughly 130,000 damage using two cards), I only received two green shards. The destruction bonus pays decent amount of red shards, but the weakness of the other bonuses make it a bit pointless.

The best way to optimize
Because of the small amount of shards players get for attacking a boss once and the nature in which points work. I theorize that there is way to receive maximum payout in this event. The way to do this is to invite players to attack your current boss only after you have achieved over 50% damage. It also means that you should only contribute to a boss battle if you are either going to achieve over 50% damage or the finishing blow. You will then down more bosses, giving you more shards, and hit the maximum number of bonuses. Although you no longer get charged the +5 Attack power when you attack another persons boss, missing out on the 50% bonus kind of sucks.

Raider Cards:
Cosmic Energy Havoc: 200% base, 300% fused bonus. He is one of the unfortunate cards that loses effectiveness when fused. It is still recommended to fuse him since you will save attack power.

Precise shot Hawkeye: 200% base, 300% fused bonus. He is one of the unfortunate cards that loses effectiveness when fused. It is still recommended to fuse him since you will save attack power.

Wind-Rider Storm: 300% base, 700% fused bonus. Good buff overall when fused that is 200% more powerful than one base Psylocke

Lady Liberty She Hulk: 400% base, 600% fused bonus. The final of the unfortunate cards that loses effectiveness when fused. It is still recommended to fuse her since it wills ave on attack power.

Psychic Katana Psylocke: 500% base, 1200% fused. Great buff overall when fused it is 200% more powerful than one base cyclops.

Mind of Matter Xavier: 800% base, 1800% fused. Only being 200% shy of Cyclops makes this probably the most reasonable raid card for this event.

Genuine Leader Cyclops: 1000% base, 2000% fused. The best raider card for this event.

For a solid starting card into the event She-Hulk gives a pretty strong buff until you can gain two storms. After that I recommend running Storm and two she hulks in your attacks. There is no reason to use a full deck of cards in this event unless they are all at a high percentage boost.

Ideally based on price of cards and bonus offered, I would recommend ignoring cyclops. His price will be too high to be worth picking up. Instead focus on grabbing Xavier's and Psyclockes since their buffs are substantial.

Deck Set up:
The recommended decks are rarely the best for this event. Instead I recommend trying to max buffs since they only effect themselves. For example, if you use She-Hulk, she will buff herself 600% but the rest of the cards are ignored.

The deck power consumption in this event is calculated based on half your decks power +5. Because of this, if you attack using two Lady Liberty She-Hulk twice, it only costs 5 points more than if you had a deck of four she hulks. Ideally, you want a deck of five built raider cards, but early one when you only have two or three, it makes more sense to take your highest percentage cards and attack multiple times using them rather than one powerful deck that is missing raider cards.

Lets say I have a deck with 3 Final Form Storm Raider cards (700% boost) and two non raider wings. For this example lets say all cards cost 20 attack power each. What's better, attacking once for 55 attack power with 2100% worth of boost, or attacking twice for 70 attack power (3 storm twice) for 4200% worth of boost, but no normal wing damage. I consider this a no brainer.

So, try to use only boosted cards and its okay to use fewer boosted cards if you can't fill a deck.

 

Referral Card Jean Grey

Out with Black Widow, in with a Jean Grey referral card. Personally I think Black Widow has always been a weak character in comics and really only got top billing because of the Avengers movie. Jean Grey is token character in the X-Men universe and very suitable for the new referral card.

Jean is pretty nice. The stats are pretty low but she comes with a low cost to use as well. At 16 power required she offers a smaller consumption than most of the better Rares. On top of that she has versatility with a Remarkably degrade to ATK and DEF all. This degrade will offer about a 7% debuff to her opponents.

Chosen one Jean Grey Referral Card Marvel war of heroes

Her final stats are to be determined but based on my estimation I would say she ends up right around that 6k attack and defense that Black Widow ended around.

Current value of referral cards is pretty low since people can create accounts for them and thus keep the market flooded, but referral cards are also currently the best way to skill up high level cards, so they still hold some when fused into their UR form.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Hidden Event Cards

So, I don't know of an effective way to describe it, but there appear to be hidden event cards. These are cards that are giving massive damage bonuses despite not being listed as being part of the event. I found it interesting to say the least since Havok was such a disappointment with only a 200/300 buff.

So, while player rush to pick up Cyclops and Xavier, I randomly came across the fact that SSR She-Hulk+ actually appears to proc a huge bonus. Not quite a thousand but over 500% is what I've seen. Its definitely not the boost for bruisers since both Havok and She-Hulk are bruisers but she does close to triple his damage.

I don't know if this is working as intended, or it's a glitch that will be remedied. I have heard that one of the Hawkeye cards also has a boost, but I haven't been able to verify it.

Since Havoks boost is less than expected, and Phoenix Force isn't offering one (despite that 'future event' text I saw) I'm fairly pleased with the fact that She-Hulk is offering a nice big boost.

Marvel War of Heroes Raider Cards

Maybe not as secret as I  thought. I have no idea where this picture was taken from because I've looked all over the page to find it. Thanks to Sean below for linking it. Either way, the boost seems to be pretty heavy on She-Hulk.

Monday, December 10, 2012

X-Men Event

Alright, the X-Men event in Marvel War of Heroes is looming right around the corner and I do have some possibly interesting news regarding it thanks to a commentator.


The Phoenix Force Card may in fact be the 1000-2500 boost card for the upcoming event. This would be acceptable lore wise, especially if they don't intent to release Xavier yet. If you go into SHIELD Enforcement Training and look up the rewards, click on Phoenix Force. You will notice in bright red above the card a message: New cards from famous artists! Have these cards ready for the upcoming Event! If you do the same for each of the other reward cards from SHIELD ET, you'll notice that none of them have this same message. As a result, I wouldn't suggest trading off your Phoenix Force just yet or you may wish you hadn't when her price goes up by 10-20PP.

Now, personally, I would much rather see Xavier released as the 1000-2500 card. If they do that I'm sure they'll release him mid event in card packs to earn some money.

**NOTE: Turns out phoenix wasn't the cards :( Lady Liberty She-Hulk and Precise Shot Hawkeye offered some weaker bonuses, but ended up being the event cards**

For more information on the event check out:
X-Men Raider Cards
X-Men

Marvel War of Heroes Silver

Earning Silver in Marvel War of Heroes is arguably one of the most difficult tasks. I can say that for a while it had me scratching my head since it always appeared I was working with almost no silver. Now, events and selling the cards you earn during them is one way to earn some extra silver, but overall Marvel War of Heroes makes it a bit of a struggle.

Earning silver isn't too difficult though and isn't that different than gathering feeders. The easiest way is to farm the early missions and operations for normal cards which you will sell for a little over 200 silver each. If you gain about 3000 silver per 60 energy selling cards this accounts for about 20-30k a day if you check every hour or two. Now, when you're enhancing powerful cards, you know that 20-30k doesn't come close to being enough. That's why you need to stack this with other methods.

*Thx to Joel for pointing out if you want pure silver, Operation 3-5 offers more silver if you sell all the cards. Since I am normally gathering feeders as well, I prefer operation 2*

Selling Rares: Do not sell rares to vendors. If you have new players in your team or alliance list, you can sell Rares for a lot more than the 12k that the game offers. A lot of players will pay a lot more silver than that for a rare.

Events: A big key to gathering silver comes from minimizing costs of things. Silver in Marvel WoH is given out in heavy amounts during events, normally at the end of one you can have a pretty significant stockpile. When you participate in an event, participate heavy and understand that the silver won't last forever, so don't just spend it all willy nilly.

Marvel War of Heroes Vibranium silver
Vibranium, event card worth 10k silver
Boosting: The easiest way to save silver is to boost cards as cheaply as possible since this is what almost all your silver is spent on. You should be farming the low levels and selling the common cards all the time, save all the uncommon. When you have a card you want to boost, if you stockpiled and fused the uncommons you've been gathering, you will be able to boost a card very quickly and cheaply.

Selling Boosters: Sometimes players in your alliance have a lot of silver but want to boost a card quickly. During this time you can gather and fuse cards to their final form and sell them to any alliance members needing them. They get cards fast rather than waiting for their energy to replenish or using energy packs, and you get silver. Works out for everybody.

Hopefully this helps some people having silver issues.


Saturday, December 8, 2012

Marvel War of Heroes Tips and Tricks

Ok, so there are lots of new players out there and even with the two week waits on trading there are a lot of mistakes people make. These Marvel War of Heroes Tips and Tricks are the quick ten things of what to do and not to do. These are in no particular order.

1) Do not use your ISO-8! It can be used to trade with high level players since leveling cards is absurdly expensive at high levels. With enough you can actually purchase SR cards that can be traded for PP. (A friend of mine for a while was trading 6 ISO-8 for an SR, realistically though expect to get an SR for 9-15 ISO-8)

2) Write down every high level account you find with low defense points. Later on you will want to attack them to gain Mastery. Only accounts with cards equaling 1000 defense will award mastery.

3) Silver can be protected by offering it in a trade to somebody and having them cancel the trade. If you don't claim the silver players attacking you won't be able to get any of it.

4) The rough values of cards are Rares are worth less than a PP, SR are worth 4-8ish PP, SSR are worth 25-50ish PP, UR are worth 75-150ish PP. Be aware of these prices when trading.

5) Do not waste Personal Power/Energy Packs if there is not an event going. You may think it's not a big deal but there will be a situation where you wish you had just one or two more during and event.

6) Purge your inactive friends. Trading can only be accomplished through team and alliance members. If you don't purge inactives you are limiting your trade pool grossly and with two week waits, getting new ones is awful.

7) Join an active allaince. Inactive alliances are the bane of games like this. If your alliance is inactive it costs you trades and ranking. It also ensures the PP you use during events isn't going to get you anywhere.

8) Complete all your special assignments. They offer bonus items and cards that are necessary for events. If you don't complete them you will regret it.

9) Max the mastery on cards you are going to use before you merge them. You greatly reduce the trading value of cards if they are not perfect. If the card is SR or higher, always fuse properly.

10) Don't remove more than one team member a day or you will permanently lose points. You can reallocate points on your account by removing team members or if they remove you, but do not personally remove more than one a day.

These were 10 Marvel War of Heroes Tips and Tricks. 

Thursday, December 6, 2012

How to Create a Strong Deck

A lot of people in Marvel War of Heroes (WoH) wonder how to create powerful decks. They commonly just max whatever the rarest cards they have assuming that this will yield the best result. Sometimes players get lucky when creating a powerful deck, sometimes they struggle only to create a deck that's weak for their level. Hopefully this guide to deck creation will help new players assemble their decks.


Choosing an alignment:
Currently in Marvel War of Heroes speed is the most popular alignment but that doesn't mean it's the best. Depending on the deck you're creating the alignment you may want to choose will switch up.

Best Attack:
1) Speed
2) Bruiser
3) Tactics

Best Defense:
1) Tactics
2) Speed
3) Bruiser

Buffs/Debuffs:
It's important to pay attention to buffs/debuffs in cards. I will note that buffs are more powerful than debuffs. The short form of this is: Specific alignment buffs/debuffs have higher percentage than (ALL) buffs/debuffs because they are more targeted. Since you can control the cards in your deck, but not the cards in your opponents deck, it makes sense for your buff cards to be alignment specific and your debuff cards to be (ALL). This means that debuffs will almost always have skills that are several percent less powerful. And ideal deck will buff a specific alignment, a step down would debuff (all), the next lowest will be self buffs, the lowest cards will be random debuffs to specific alignments.

Deck Layout:
A deck consists of five cards. The first, second, and third cards are your core. The last two cards are called wing cards. The skill on wing cards is considered less important than the core cards because they are less likely to go off. So, ideally your deck will have three cards with powerful abilities, and two cards with powerful stats.

Common to Uncommon:
The first step to creating a powerful deck in Marvel War of Heroes will be moving from common cards into uncommon cards. This is easily accomplished by farming early levels that only cost three energy per card. Once you gather ten of a certain uncommon card, Fuse them all into their rare cards. Maxing them before hand is not necessary because they are such low rarity you will be replacing them.

Uncommon to Rare:
Hopefully you get lucky in card packs and are able to gather some rares. This is where things start to get trick in Marvel War of Heroes deck creations. At this point before you start leveling your cards its important to look at what you have and decide which direction you should go. Try to ensure that at least two of your cards have great buffs/debuffs and your others have high stats. In order to get pairs of cards you will need to trade within your alliance and team. If you have specific cards you can post in your daily rallies what you're looking for and what you're looking to trade. The key is to try to gather pairs so you can fuse them into SR.

Rare to SR:
This is the most difficult jump in the game. The reason for this is that the rough value of a Rare card is 1 Power pack or less (generally less). The value of the least expensive SR cards are about 5 Power Packs. That isn't the only issue though, players don't need rares if they have a lot of SR, so they won't trade SR for R, you actually need to get the power packs. You can sometimes find low level players on forums that may pay a couple power packs for a final properly formed rare. The key thing will be you need to liquidate the cards for PP in order to gain the PP to buy SR.

SR to SSR:
It takes about four to six SR to equal a single SSR, sometimes more. That makes this the second hardest jump in the game. The easiest way to do this is to find players looking to trade down from their SSR. If you are willing to trade some of your final form SR cards, you can normally slowly gather these through trading cards.

SSR to UR:
Much easier than the other two. UR cards normally have a rough value of two SSR. Because of this, normally a fully formed properly created SSR can be traded for a base Ultra Rare.

Quick Tips:
1) Black Widows are very cheap and effective. By using six Black Widow, immediately combining them into two ++ versions of the card, you can max them and create the +++ version for minimal cost and it will only be 150pts less than eight cards maxed sixteen times.

2) Stack cards of the same type. This way the buffs effect them all and are easy to control. Mixing alignment weakens your deck.

3) In order to get to SR, liquidate rares to low level players for Power Packs, then use the powerpacks to buy cards. Players with SR don't trade for Rares virtually ever.

4) Boosting cards is very expensive. Because of this players are normally willing to pay a little extra not to have to do it themselves. Keep that in mind for trading.

The exact process I would take: 
Get 10 uncommon wolverine from the Operation 2 Mission 3. I would fuse these all together immediately for my attack deck. I would then go through missions until Operation 6 Mission 3 where I would farm for 10 Captain Americas which I would fuse together immediately.

After fusing those cards they would be rare and I would level your five Rare Wolverine and Five Rare Captain Americas each to roughly level 20. There is no point in maxing them.

At this point in Marvel War of Heroes I would try to gather Black Widows. Generally people will sell them for 15,000 silver each pretty easily. I would then engage in 'tip 1' of creating six card evolutions of them.

At this point it becomes hard. Actively try to sell every rare you're not using for PP. If you send out feelers constantly you can slowly gather PP. Once I would get 10ish PP I would aim for SR Nova's. They are dual utility and since you can't get SR quickly it will work well with the Black Widows as you slowly gain strength. You can also get SR human torches if you want to push pure offense but they cost more. I would then try to continually slowly gather PP by selling feeder cards/silver for them. Each time you finish an Nova/Torch, you can liquidate a Final Form Black Widow for PP.

At this point there really is only one jump and that's to SSR Ghost Rider. The only way to do this is to hunt for a strong order since you'd have an SSR deck. Then you'll need to liquidate your rewards for SR/SSR/PP that you can trade. Look for people trading down.

Your final bump would be to UR Spidey, but that should be a long way off.

At least that's how I would do it. Accompishing the UR Widow deck should happen pretty quick, after that it becomes time consuming but that's the fun of Marvel War of Heroes.

 





Wednesday, December 5, 2012

X-Men Raider Cards

This will be more of a rant than anything else. The boss in this event is Magneto, the Raider cards are Psychic Katana Psylocke, Cosmic Energy Havok, and Wind-Rider Storm.

Although I find Storm an acceptable X-Men to face Magneto, the other two are just frivolous. Neither Psylocke nor Havok could come anywhere near defeating Magneto. Realistically the card that should have been released was Charles Xavier since he's at least a nemesis. One top of that Phoenix is one of the only X-Men that can defeat Magneto meaning she should have been given the buff for this event.

Magneto is one of the strongest most loved villains in comic book history and half assing card decisions irritates the hell out of me. Just wanted to rant about it.

That being said:

The base cards for Havoc and Storm will offer 300% boosts individually and 800% if fused. It is also possible that one of them will offer a higher buff.

Psychic Katana Psylocke will offer a 600% boost individually and 1800% boost if fused.

I'll wager that 1/2 way through the event another card is released of SSR quality that offers 1000% boost individually and 2500% boost when fused. I can only hope it's an Xavier.

One quick idea:
Being as Magneto has only really been defeated by team efforts outside of bad writing I think there should have been a special combo that did additional damage. For example if you had Angel, Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Iceman, Beast you have the Uncanny X-Men. But this would have required the developers to care about Marvel.

Just a thought.

**Added after event started**

Actual Raider Cards:
Cosmic Energy Havoc: 200% base, 300% fused bonus. He is one of the unfortunate cards that loses effectiveness when fused. It is still recommended to fuse him since you will save attack power.

Precise shot Hawkeye: 200% base, 300% fused bonus. He is one of the unfortunate cards that loses effectiveness when fused. It is still recommended to fuse him since you will save attack power.

Wind-Rider Storm: 300% base, 700% fused bonus. Good buff overall when fused that is 200% more powerful than one base Psylocke

Lady Liberty She Hulk: 400% base, 600% fused bonus. The final of the unfortunate cards that loses effectiveness when fused. It is still recommended to fuse her since it wills ave on attack power.

Psychic Katana Psylocke: 500% base, 1200% fused. Great buff overall when fused it is 200% more powerful than one base cyclops.

Mind of Matter Xavier: 800% base, 1800% fused. Only being 200% shy of Cyclops makes this probably the most reasonable raid card for this event.

Genuine Leader Cyclops: 1000% base, 2000% fused. The best raider card for this event.

For a solid starting card into the event She-Hulk gives a pretty solid buff until you can gain two storms. After that I recommend running Storm and two she hulks in your attacks. There is no reason to use a full deck of cards in this event unless they are all at a high percentage boost.

Ideally based on price of cards and bonus offered, I would recommend ignoring cyclops. His price will be too high to be worth picking up. Instead focus on grabbing Xavier's and Psyclockes since their buffs are substantial.




X-Men

The newest event in Marvel War of Heroes will be X-Men and I must say I'm thrilled. The event is based on the same format of the previous Avengers event and the strategies and goals here should be the same.

The players will be expected to complete missions and during them there is a chance a boss can appear. Up to five bosses can appear at any given time. When a boss appears players have the opportunity to fight the boss. The more bosses a player defeats, the more likely powerful bosses are to appear. Upon defeating bosses players earn ISO-8 Shards that are used to purchase card packs.

Overall, this event is pretty straight forward and requires using a combination of Energy and Power Packs. Players need to progress through missions in order to summon bosses and players need to be able to attack those bosses. So for the X-Men event, both types of packs are useful.

Now, I'm sure you're wondering how to get a higher ranking during this event. Well, fortunately I learned some tricks during the last even that helps in the ranking.

About Points:
There are several different things you gain points for in a battle. The first is you gain some points for being the person that discovered the boss. This bonus is normally small but is meant to reward players for summoning bosses in missions. The second bonus players receive is the finisher bonus. This bonus goes to the person who deals the killing blow on the boss. The final and most lucrative way to gain points is the MVP bonus. MVP is given to the player who contributes the most points on a boss. These are the achievements when you beat a boss that reward points.

About ISO-8 Shards:
These are rewarded for other things during a boss fight. The first way to gain shards is the damage bonus. This determines a certain amount of shards to be given to you solely on how much damage you did to the boss. The more damage, the more shards. The second way to gain shards is the body part bonus. A boss has two health bars, one for main health, another for body part. Damage will be applied to both parts of the boss and you will receive purple ISO-8 Shard for damaging a bosses body part.

How to use this knowledge to your advantage?
Well, that's the easy part. First things first, try to push through missions when either no bosses are up or a couple bosses are up. This way you have the highest odds of gaining the initiation bonus. Your order/team will normally be happy to help because if they're out of Energy, they're waiting for a boss. Next, if you want to maximize points ideally you'll push to do 51% of the damage to the boss before inviting teammates. MVP bonus is the biggest bonus and 51% ensures its yours. You'll also get a lot of shards for damaging the boss and the body part. Finally, you can resort to sniping bosses but it can be pretty difficult. This involves attempting to get the last hit on every boss that's up and personally I don't like this method. The people you're sniping from are your order members and team members. It's kind of a dick move.

Finally, if you are a newer player or a veteran with a weaker deck, attack every boss once with a low power card. This ensures you'll get some of the shards that increase your chance of pulling cards that can improve your deck. It's very easy during the course of events like this to get your deck completely stocked with Rares and possible to get lucky with some SR.

**SIDENOTE** The system is flawed in the way points are distributed because a player could feasibly contribute and get nothing from the contribution. The most recent event in Rage of Bahamut was based on the Avengers event with some alterations. If Mobage takes those changes and applies them to the flaws in the Avengers event the game will heavily favor attacking every boss once.

Event Cards:
Even the lowest event cards can offer huge boosts during this event. I highly recommend getting them if you are able. The lowest ranked one will offer a 300% boost. It looks like for the event the cards will be Psylock, Storm, and Havoc which I find disappointing. Magneto has enough true nemesis that they didn't have to reach into nowhere and pull out Psylock and Havoc. But these cards are awesome for the event and picked up immediately.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Best Cards R/SR


In Marvel War of Heroes there are several cards that constitute the best in their tiers. This is primarily because they offer the highest stats with the best buffs. Each rarity has cards that are considered better than the rest and I just wanted to make a quick list of what I consider the top three cards in each tier and why, starting at Rare because commons and uncommons are replaced so quickly. These are the best marvel war of heroes cards by rarity.

Best Rare Marvel War of Heroes Cards:

1) Bedrock Thing 
2) Nova Corps Nova
3) Maria Hill


Honorable Mentions:

Ball of Fire Human Torch, Mjolnir Thor, Jigsaw, Ultimate Fist Iron Fist.

Bedrock thing I consider the best card among rares for his high defense and powerful boost. At 6924 Defense he offers the highest out of the rares and brings a notable increase to bruiser defense. This means that if you stack five of him, not only will you have just under 35k base defense, you will have buffs to bruiser to increase it even higher.

Nova Corps Nova makes number two for being an extremely balanced card. Not only are both his attack and defense over 6000, his defense hits 6.6k and he has a buff to both attack and defense of speed cards. Although this means the buff is weaker than a pure buff, his well balanced stats make him a solid addition.

Maria Hill makes third place on my list for her high defense in the speed category. She offers a 6.7k defense while offering a notable buff to speed defense. Within rare cards she's only second to Bedrock Thing defensively and she works well with Nova and Ball of Fire Human Torch.

Honorable Mention category are cards that are strong in their own right, but don't make top because of their unbalanced natures. Ball of Fire Human torch for example offers a 6.4k attack but only maintains a 5.8k defense. Although he is a fantastic card when used offensively, I feel that the balanced nature of Nova for both attack and defense wins. Bedrock thing makes it despite his imbalance based on his pure dominance in defense hitting almost 7k.

Best SR Marvel War of Heroes cards:

1) Vibranium Shield Captain America
2) November Foxtrot Nick Fury
3) Cloned Eliminator X-23

Honorable Mentions:
Unleashed Power The Thing, Centurian Prime Nova, Repulsor Beam Iron Man, Logan's Spirit Wolverine.

Vibranium Shield Captain America takes spot number on for being a high stat specialist again. Not only is he rocking almost 9k defense but he offers a pure defensive buff to tactics cards. This means that if you stack pure him in a deck, he is going to be a tough nut to crack.

November Foxtrot Nick Fury is number two for a solid attack and defense while bringing an attack all buff to the table. There is no denying that SR cards are tougher to come by than rares. Because of that, having a card that can buff all your attack cards whether they are Tactics, Speed, or Bruiser helps. He might not offer the best attack or defense, but he holds his own in both those stats as well.

Cloned Eliminator X-23 makes it for perfect balance. Just under 8k attack and defense while bringing a powerful self buff to the table makes her a viable card for any deck. Although there are other cards out there that are more of specialists, with the limited nature of SR quality cards she is extremely versatile.

Honorable Mentions category this time has Thing, a reasonable argument could be made that he should be in the top three for his heavy defense and solid buff again. Centurian Prime Nova makes it for being very balanced and an asset to the speed category. Repulsor beam Iron Man loses a spot on the top list because his buff is to attack and defense of tactics cards, with a proper tactics deck he could easily be the most valuable card outside of captain. Finally, Logan's Spirit Wolverine for having a buff that can be used by every card, although his defense is so low you would virtually never use him in a defense deck.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Shield Enforcement Training Maximizing Points

In Marvel War of Heroes most people want to be able to maximize their points during shield enforcement training for both their Alliance, and themselves. Most of the time maxing your own points will naturally max your alliance points, but there are situations where that's not true.

Maxing Personal Points:
This is pretty easy to do. No matter what you are limited by the number of HP you have but there are a couple of things you can do.

First is wait until a match occurs that has a low defense player, somebody with 10 defense points is ideal. During that match use all of your attacks and power packs to farm this player. Players with only 10 defense pay the maximum amount of points. The reason for this is that the points given are determined partially by level, order rank (leaders), and finally by % of defense left. So if a player has 100 defense and is down to 10 defense, he only pays a little bit until he uses a power pack. If a player has 10 defense and is locked at 10 defense, he pays 100% all the time since he always has 100% of the defense. This is a protection that Mobage puts in to prevent players from not putting any points in defense so they only pay a little.

(Tip: Write down the name of any member an opposing order with 10 defense that is higher level than you. You can farm them later for Mastery)

The next way to maximize personal points is to never let your attack power cap. Every minute spent with capped attack power is a minute of regen lost. If you have less than necessary to attack fully and you know your Alliance isn't going to start another war for sometime, you can either save until then and risk being capped, or attack the wall/core for additional points.

(Tip: Do not start wars because you want to be able to attack. Not only is this disrespectful to your alliance, you'll probably get kicked for doing it.)

Maxing Alliance Points:
There are a couple different philosophies to doing this. One philosophy is a war should always be going. The reason for this is you never actually LOSE points. If you go two hours without a war, that is two hours where people may have attacked and accumulated an extra 200-500pts for your Alliance. This method comes with some downsides though.

The downside of this method is that it risks your walls being down for a real match that your entire team is on for. It also risks your defense leader being low on defense points for the match that your entire team is on for. If you lose these big battles worth 10000 points you only earn 8000. That is a lot of power packs for key players to be out. Not only that but winning gets a bonus of 1500. As you can see, if constant battles result in walls being down or defense leaders not being ready, you risk 3500 points in exchange for the 200-500 points you may have earned from those other wars.

My personal preference of Maxing Alliance Points is simple. You begin by taking the defense leader down, then the walls. If every member attacks the wall, generally they are down. Afterward players farm the other team for double points. Now, the key here is that you don't need to accumulate 10000 points against a team putting up 1000. The Power Packs you use here may be needed during a different match for a victory. Each victory gives an additional 1500 points, that's about 7.5 attacks. Ten wars, that's an additional 75 attacks. 

Try to keep your points low and win as many matches as possible while doing it. This allows players to gain a LOT of bonus points from victories and retain Power Packs for the last day. Alliance match ups are chosen based on people around your rank. That means if your rank stays low/mid and you are really a high ranked Alliance, you will win far more matches, giving far more 1500 point bonuses. It also reduces the risk of you losing 20% of the points earned in a match. The last day you blow up with all your remaining Power Packs. You should be able to accumulate huge amounts of points against the mid ranked alliances, and have a huge amount of Power Packs to use against high ranked orders that are probably running low on Power Packs.

To run an example of this. Lets say an Alliance plays 10 matches a day for four days and has 1000PP between all members, each PP will be worth 200pts for this scenario.

The first order uses up 75% of their PP the first three days to achieve a high rank. They have won 20/30 matches. This means they have achieved 30,000 bonus points. It also means they have lost 20% of their points 10 times. Finally, it means they have 25% of their Power Packs left for the last day.

50% of PP wins + 25% of PP losses  +  Bonus Points = Total points going into last day
  (500PPx200)   +    (250PPx160)   +   30000   =     170k points.

The second alliance in the same scenario uses 50% of their PP the first three days to barely win each of their matches. They have won 30/30 matches but have far fewer points because they used far less PP. They won 30/30 matches.

100% of PP wins + Bonus Points = Total points going into last day
(500PPx200) + 45000 bonus points = 145000. Notice using 250 HP less they are only 25k behind in points.

Going into the last day, team two has 500HP left to burn, increasing chances of winning heavily. On top of this they get to start the day by attacking mid level alliances (probably one or two matches while they rack up mammoth points).

Hopefully this is easy to understand and makes for some interesting reading to think about. This is a philosophy that is regularly used in Rage of Bahamut by Orders.



Friday, November 30, 2012

Assault Cards

In Marvel War of Heroes Assault Cards are the primary source of wall damage. Anybody who has attacked a wall notices that although it only has 50000 hit points it also takes a significant reduction in damage. Versus other card games where the assault card used is based on realm, Marvel War of Heroes actually has different rankings of Assault Cards.

Arsenal Punisher S Rare:

This card offers the the highest boost to wall damage at 1000% increase to damage. If the card is fused into its SSR quality it increases the damage by 2500%.

November Foxtrot Nick Fury S Rare:

Marvel war of Heros Nick Fury

This card offers the second highest boost to wall damage at 500%. If the card is fused into its SSR quality it increases the damage by 1200%.

V.T.R.B.S. War Machine Rare:

This card offers the third highest boost to wall damage at 400%. If the card is fused into its SR quality it increases the damage to 1000%.

Leopardess Tigra S Rare:

Marvel war of Heros Leopardess Tigra Reward

This card is tied for the fourth highest boost to wall damage at 300%. If the card is fused into its SSR quality it increases the damage to 600%.

Maria Hill Rare:

Marvel war of Heros Maria Hill

This card is tied for the fourth highest boost to wall damage at 300%. If the card is fused into its SR quality it increases the damage to 600%


Since Leopardess was a charity card its not shocking to find it being such a low buff. Overall, I think Arsenal Punisher S Rare is well worth it to add to anybodies deck. Walls will always exist so investing in wall breakers is worthwhile.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Boosting

In Marvel War of Heroes, as in all trading card games, people over-complicate boosting. They start to get into the deep math of it and pretty soon you have mathematician figuring out exactly how much every level costs on each card. Personally, I don't care for the long winded explanations.

Boosting Levels 1-30:
The easiest and cheapest levels to boost, I recommend players use common cards found in Operation two. When boosting in this level range I recommend beginning by using any cards that are not of the same alignment that are found. After you run out of these cards, start using cards of the same alignment.

The reason for this is that at lower levels, it is cheaper to boost. At higher levels, it becomes more expensive. Cards of the same alignment offer a higher boost. By doing it this way you reduce overall silver cost.

You should also try to boost 10 cards at a time. The reason for this is if you do it only a couple at a time you'll experience every price hike as they happen since at each level is a price hike. Bypassing levels, bypasses price hikes.

Boosting Levels 30+:
When boosting cards in this bracket it can get expensive. The cheapest way to do this is to first fuse all the cards farmed from Operation two and then using them to enhance. Although fusing the cards costs silver, it is less than than the amount per card at level thirty or higher and it will allow you to better bypass levels, thus bypassing price hikes.

(For this I recommend fusing the uncommon cards in these early missions to their are forms, the boost is huge and this way you can sell all the normal cards you find to offset. This will take longer but will save on silver.)

The same rules of using any alignment at starter levels and same alignment once you run out of them. 

ISO-8:
One you start hitting very high levels boosting in SSR/UR cards it becomes worth it to start using ISO-8 if you have it. It saves you a fortune and ensures three levels. I normally recommend you do this on the last ten level home stretch.

Remember:
Don't waste time boosting cards you're not going to use

Monday, November 26, 2012

Shield Enforcement Training Tips

Marvel War of Heroes upcoming Shield Enforcement Training will pit groups of players against each other to see who is the strongest, and most importantly which alliance is the strongest. I have been thinking of alternate ways for this to progress given the way the event is described and the leader positions in an alliance, and the only thing that really makes sense is that it will progress like a Holy War in Rage of Bahamut. They might add a twist or two, but reasonably the main strategies should hold true here.

For the first Shield Enforcement Training it's important to get a high rank because that will allow alliances to maintain high level players and recruit high level players. If an alliance that was previously active only achieves a rank of 2000, you can expect anybody over 30k base stats to jump ship.

Here are some quick tips for this event that should hold true. They are taken from my experience in Rage and even if twists are added to the event should hold true here.

Tip 1: Defense for the win
If your defense leader is rocking a mammoth defense, most Alliances won't even fight back. The defense leader is the first experience they have battling your alliance and if they can't break through him, they just save their power packs for the next battle.

Tip 2: Kick inactives
It is better to have nobody in the spot in the alliance than an inactive player. Inactive players are just targets for the other alliance. They use them to accumulate points easily.

Tip 3: Take down the walls
The walls reduce point gains, taking them down doubles point gain. If there are no wall breaker cards this can be a daunting task, but is still easily accomplished through coordination. Lets say it takes every member of an alliance two Power Packs worth of attacks before the wall comes down. Once the wall comes down, they will receive double points. So each PP they use will be worth double the points. It only takes two until they break even, and then they gain double points per pack after.

A lot of people are hesitant to attack the wall, but if you have the juice, burn it to the ground. If the other team doesn't and you do, it's virtually impossible for them to keep up.

Tip 4: Coordinate
This is the toughest one for alliances to accomplish and are normally done through Line or Palingro. If the entire order attacks the wall, it goes down very fast and then you achieve double points from the opponents you're attacking. It also ensures that your team will be victorious since an alliance with 5 members on will have a tough time against an alliance with 20 members on.

Tip 5: Target the titles
Attack leaders, defense leaders, alliance leaders all have bonus stats as a result of their rank, but also give bonus points. If you are able to easily beat the leaders, farm them for points. Keep an eye out though because after being repetitively farmed they will be reduced in value and switching targets might be viable.

That's all I got on Shield Enforcement Training until it releases. These tips should work no matter how they decide to configure the event but I'd bet that this will mirror Holy Wars almost exactly.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

(Leopardess) Tigra and Shield Training

Marvel war of Heros Leopardess Tigra Reward 

I feel that Leopardess deserves her own post since I'm sure a lot of questions are revolving around her for the next event. For those who don't know she is listed as having a weak ability to partially intensify ATK and DEF of all your cards, but then has an asterisk an comment: Exclusive ability for the upcoming Special Training Event. This leaves a lot of people wondering what the exclusive ability is.

Well, I will list the likely possibilities for the possible abilities. First I will let you know that this event should mirror Rage of Bahamuts Holy Wars. Holy Wars in Rage of Bahamut is the only event where players are pitted directly against each other and the only event that utilizes Walls. This mirrors the description of alliances against each other and Protection Walls to protect your alliance. Both games are developed by Mobage and recently there was a cross over in that Rage introduced 'Frost Shards' similar to ISO-Shards in an event. Because of these similarities I'm fairly certain in my predictions.

Wall Breaker: 
Although I think cards like Juggernaut would be more suited to the role, its possible she's a Wall Breaker. The walls have very high health but also receive greatly reduced damage from normal decks attacking them. For example, if your deck normally does 40k, the wall may only take 5k damage. A Wall Breakers ability multiplies that damage, so where you may normally only do 5k, a Wall Breaker may boost you up to 10-15k.

Point Boost:
I think this is the more likely card only because it doesn't make sense that a speed card should be a Wall Breaker. A point boost card would result in additional valor points being rewarded upon victory in a fight. The amount of points normally seems very small, but they add up quickly over the course of the event.

These are the two most likely abilities, with Point Boost being the most likely in my opinion.

Special Assignments

I view the special assignments kind of like quests, and I really like them because it makes the generally boring grind of questing pretty refreshing. The normal special assignments are pretty easy and not worth talking about since most of them are for performing a basic game function or leveling up. The Special assignments for the event from November 22nd to November 27th though are worth touching on.

Marvel War of Heroes Special Assignments:

Batch 1: Unlocked at start
Battle Once - 1 Personal Power Pack
Attack and win 2 times in a row - 2000 Rally Points
Attack successfully 3 times - 30,000 Silver
Steal 2 resources - 1 Shield Barrier
Attack successfully 5 times - 1 Personal Power Pack

This batch was really easy once I stole two resources using my full attack deck. Afterward I placed two cards in my deck and looked for people I had previously marked as having 10 defensive points and farmed them five times. Once they are all finished you receive the (Leopardess) Tigra card which is a rather weak SR.

Batch 2: Unlocked after Batch 1 is complete and after November 24th
Battle 2 times - 1 Personal Power Pack
Activate 2 skills in Battle and win - 4000 Rally Points
Win with raised morale - 50,000 Silver
Attack successfully 10 times - 1 Personal Power Pack
Attack successfully 20 times - (Level Up) ISO-8

This batch is more time consuming but still follows the same principle. Four of the five achievements can be completed easily by farming people with 10 defense with a one or two card deck. There are a lot of high level farming accounts with 10 defense. The activiate 2 skills in a battle and win is also easily completed and in most cases should occur naturally using a 2 card deck as long as they both have skills. Once they are all finished you receive the second (Leopardess) Tigra card which can be combined with the first card.

Leopardess Tigra Reward

(Leopardess) Tigra:
According to the special assignment description (Leopardess) Tigra is supposed to help somehow in the following event so I wouldn't say trade her away or toss her yet. Although a lot of the events in Marvel War of Heroes parallel Rage of Bahamut, it's possible Mobage adds a little bit of a twist on the events. Kind of like the rotating alignment for bonus damage when attacking Loki. It's possible they are doing something along those lines with Tigra.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Secret Agent Black Widow Referral Card

Marvel war of Heros Secret Agent Black Widow

Marvel War of Heroes is a relatively new trading card game so it didn't surprise me when they released a pretty nice referral card, it always helps getting people in the door. Over time as cards tune up I'm sure we'll find Secret Agent Black Widow will turn out to be weak in comparison, but as far as new decks go, she's solid.

She is the only card at the moment that requires four cards to hit final form making her more expensive to max than normal rare cards though.

Her final form stats are around 6500 atk/def and she comes with a 9% boost to all cards attack and defense. Although the boost doesn't seem great, it's really solid in comparison to most easily accessible cards.

When compared with Rare Nova evolved into SR, she has 400 more attack and a better buff. Although she is still lower than true SR cards.

The nice part is with the game being so new, there are a lot of people out there to join that need to be referred. I would highly recommend players new to Marvel War of Heroes try to gather a deck of Secret Agent Black Widow.



Marvel Alignment

So in other games players are stuck an alignment to gain a bonus but Marvel War of Heroes avoids that. Instead players can choose which cards they want in their deck without worrying about losing a buff. A lot of players though still have questions about which alignment is best and that's what this will address.


The main three alignments are Speed, Bruiser, and Tactics.

Speed:
There are a couple reasons why speed is the best alignment at the moment, first and foremost being (Friendly Neighborhood) Spider-Man. As far as Ultra Rare cards go, Spider-Man is the best. The reason is he is the only Ultra Rare at this moment that has an attack boost to one alignment. This means that all speed cards get his boost and it is a high percentage boost because it is focused to only attack and only one realm. Other reasons that Speed is currently the best alignment is because many of the rewards from the first event such as Fox-Trot Nick Fury and Maria Hill are speed based and decent for their rarities. Finally, the referral card which is easy to come by is speed based.

Tactics:
I would consider tactics cards second best at the moment. Despite bruiser having two Ultra Rare, both of them are self buffs. This means that although they may have powerful cards, the deck as a whole is slightly weaker. Ultra Rare quality Iron Man is the second best card in the game at the moment offering a boost to attack and defense of tactics alignment.

Bruiser:
Bruiser has to be the third best for a couple reasons. The first reason being that despite being the only alignment with two Ultra Rare cards it lacks the highest level buff to a specific alignment. Both Speed and Tactics have an Ultra Rare card that boosts the alignments attack or defense, but Wolverine is a boost to selfs atk/def and Hulk is a boost to selfs atk. The upside to Bruiser is that there were several Rare, SR, SSR Thor released onto the market making it a little easier to create a high level Bruiser deck than a high level tactics deck.

There are two of what I would call Sub Alignments, Hero or Villain

This only comes into play for activating special combos in cards. To gauge with sub alignment is better we need to look at skill boosts. Currently, Hero is FAR SUPERIOR to villain as a sub alignment. At the moment there are only three boosts to villains that I am aware of and all of the cards that receive the boosts are sub par.

I felt this was worth mentioning because when looking for speed/tactics/bruiser cards to supplement your deck, it should be important at this point in the game to look for heroes. Unless the combo skill you have doesn't require all five.

Of course in the future as new cards release this could change.