VS Compendium - Maximising 1-12 for everyone.

Siege

So, aside from the great tips from u/PolishTamales found here, we've decided to come up with some of the better ways to get through the All-New, All-Difficult VS experience - from start to end.

###Getting through the usual 1-9 (Perhaps with Bonuses)

Bonus characters are randomly selected, not a "This character is incredibly awesome and will destroy this boss". To stay relatively neutral on whether it's actually worth using the bonus 3 characters, keep in mind that:

Previous PSA of Bonus Characters changing up on restarting the game is inconsistent at best, YMMV.
In a roster of 66 characters, you'll burn 27 at least, some of them being your stronger/favourite/easier to use characters.
VS7-9 might demand that you use other characters to somewhat weaken the boss before bringing in the 3 bonus characters for the bonus rewards, leaving you even less characters for the much harder VS10-12
Refresher Tips for 7-9: Tag to stop Maestro's Meteors, Tag 2 seconds after Venom's Parasitic Shot to avoid damage completely, Get silk to cheese Blingpin.

(For those who have yet to try out bonus characters and such, for every bonus character you complete the boss with, you get one extra "Bonus Reward Box". 1 Bonus Character, 1 Box. 2 Characters, 2 Boxes. Etc. http://imgur.com/5vrrqcq)

To help you decide, here's a quick breakdown of the possible bonus rewards possible (One caveat - my sample size isn't big enough as of yet ( < 300 at the moment) so take this as more anecdotal. I intend to have this bumped up to at least a thousand. Feel free to comment with your results that are larger, preferably with pictorial evidence.

Reward Type Min-Max

###Planning the VS Experience

Lets not turn this into a second job. It's pretty easy to break down - how deep is your roster.

Are you u/Goodsituation and can smash V-12 out using only bonus characters while stroking his pet cat like an evil supervillain? Or are you limited by X number of full 6* 60s, some half-mastered 6*s, etc. Only you know best.

Just remember that the general power progression of a single character (not relative to other "God" tier, "Crap" tier, etc.) is usually; in order of priority -

Rank
Mastery
8-Set ISO
Leveled Up Essential Skills (Summon / Shield / Group Buff / Self Buff)
Star/Enhancement Level of the ISOs used
Rest of the Skills.

You decide for yourself if its worth going for the bonuses at the risk of not being able to complete higher stages.

###With great power comes great electricity bills. VS10-12

Preamble Some useful things to note (some that might even run contrary to the pointers above). VIP heal helps, and you don't have to be VIP200 for it. Anecdotally, my first day's VS was completed by just: Using the 5 and 6 star skills then swapping characters, and I had it covered under 20 characters (all 6* 60). If your roster has this breadth/depth to it, you probably won't be needing much help.

Some generics:

Time is actually your greatest enemy with the quick-swap strategy. I ran out of time more often than losing characters (only lost a couple to Loki ever.)
Leadership is key. Energy Attack % Leader? Fill the other 2 slots with energy attack characters.
I would suggest ignoring team-up bonuses if one is aiming to maximise bonuses from 1-9 simply because of the increase in crazy planning required.
Great AOE is incredibly important.
As mentioned by u/PolishTamales, maxed gear sets are always great, more damage, less time spent. Some slight disagreements with his tips though, I'd point out that Skill CD % isn't as important as it seems because you will go through a few characters during your first few days of attempts. I also do not recommend using Loki his way (box of clones). The bosses are mobile (Shield Backpedal, Ultron Jump Smash, YJ i-frames.) It's far safer to keep the boss in front of your own clones V-formation. I'll debate you on your thread u/PolishTamales !

~~As we're still unsure if VS10-12 sequence of bosses will change up, no sense in speculating just yet.~~ Sequences change. HP levels remain the same. Onto the individual specifics (Saving Loki for last, since he's the hardest by far) -

##YJ - Ye Olde King of Reddit Hype (Now overthrown by Silk)

Why start with YJ recommendations first? Because this is where you burn your strongest speed characters. The only other time you've had a chance to was at Blingpin (maybe Malekith, but no one cares about him aside from a certain Roenism).

Quick Recap: Criss-crossing train-tracks, red glow indicates incoming train (Operator Thogar from WoW anyone?), annyoing spiderbots Bullseye Style.

Recommended Characters:

The classic speed AB team of SC/Widow/Silk are fantastic here. With increased damage against YJ and the Spiderbots, decent AOE, etc.
Green Goblin: another classic hero. Great kite-ability, decent AOE from his 3* skill once spiderbots start bunching up.
Spider-Gwen/Miles/Original u/Spedwards : AOE CC abiltiies, great mobility. Spidey's 6* also bashes everyone together for more happy fun times.
Elsa: Her 3* ability's potential to lock up everything is fantastic, her 6* has decent AOE and the rest of her skillset locks up YJ pretty well.
Bucky Shoutout. Break, break and more break. His 5* skill tumbles him backwards nicely to avoid stuff, his 6* does great AOE. Also, wonderful buff to armor up himself or his teammates.

Blast/Uni Characters of Note (Don't use Combat ffs): Caveat - I left out some possible options because I prefer using them at Ultron

Wasp. Great Leadership, fantastic movement, i-frames, etc will help you avoid everything in the map.
Coulson. With correct team setup (Strikers that proc on him attacking or getting attacked), you'll have 4 characters out for the price of one - Coulson, the striker, Capt, May. His 5* skill is also great for decimating everything in range.
Red Skull. AOE stun with 5* skill. His 1* Ability (Rapid Fire) also pierces.
Angela. Wonderful 6* to control bot positioning, 5* does great AOE damage, 1* (War Rage) has great single target damage on YJ, 2* (Blades of Ichor) leaves a flame pool a la Ghost Rider if you have her ANAD uniform. I'd prefer leaving her as witchhunter for more damage though.
ANAD Rocket. Understandably very niche. But the 5 mines from his uniform do great, he's one of the very few characters that can stand at distance and lay down the law, with a nice self-healing 6* massive AOE to boot.
Deathlok. He no likey machine. He also has nice 6* AOE, 3* AOE, 2* Covering Fire AOE locks up everything in a cone in front of him. 5* direct damage and his 1* (Combat Shootout) passively backpedals him.

Quick Tips

*Don't overstress yourself with the incoming trains. They don't hurt that much. Or tag another character. *Feel free to kite the bots the same way in Team-Up/VS Bullseye. Plus points if you can make them blow up on him, but generally blowing everything up with AOE helps.

##Ultron - Think of it as beating up on u/Spedwards, it helps

Quick Recap No stage obstacles, just Ultron and all his minions to beat on. No strings attached here.

Recommended Characters: Also another caveat, I suggest saving the big guns for Loki of course, so these are the better AOE characters that help chop ~~/u/Spedwards~~ Ultron and his minions faster

Black Bolt. BB just wrecks this stage. His 6* smashes everything around and stuns them to boot, 5* gives a temporary shield to shrug off some damage. Rest of his kit synergizes perfectly.
Lincoln, Thor. Similar to BB. How do we fight Ultron? WE BLOW UP EVERYTHING

Quick Tips

He's really not as tough as he's made out to be (Ultron, not Sped)
AOE, AOE, AOE, AOE.
Did I mention AOE?
Don't forget to AOE.
AOE stands for Area of Effect (Damage)
Also, AOE.

Loki (Low key Lyesmith. +Love for whoever gets the reference)

Quick Recap

Ahh. The Flavour of the Month(s) has now come back to bite everyone in the backend. Much credit to u/PolishTamales for covering most of the tips, I'll just quickly cover what I think are the important ones that I think should be emphasised.

At just short of a million HP (952158) to be exact, you fight Loki in his little fortress of solitude, sans Superman, and he slowly creates more and more clones (First at 1:45 or so, then one every 10-15 seconds or so) His first clone is always at 10-12 o'clock, 2nd at 2-3 o'clock, 3rd at 7 o'clock. He will have a maximum of 4 clones out 40 seconds into the fight, most likely encircling the entire arena (but at times leaving you with a small quadrant untouched)

Recommended Characters: Your biggest guns need to come out here. Bring out your own Lady Loki to seduce him, or Blingpin to cook him in the rice cooker that Fisk seems to be stuck in. Leadership is everything, you need as much damage in the first 10 clone-less seconds as possible,

Captain America is a wonderful recommendation by the man I've credited enough in this guide. Constant bashing with 5 and 6* skills will help you passively avoid many of the clone's scepter bolts.
Big-hitter characters will make a huge difference. Combat-wise, I put out Hulk (WWH Costume), Goliath and Blade (Both Costumes) and just facesmashed him as hard as possible in the first 30 seconds before dodging is an issue. I managed to shred close to 60% with Goliath's 5* and 3*, Blade's 6* and 5* and all of Hulk's skillset before having them drop like flies.
More combat love: She-Hulk Leadership, Warwolf 6* Buff Stacking for her to start throwing Buses instead of Taxis.
Coulson. With correct team setup (Strikers that proc on him attacking or getting attacked), you'll have 4 characters out for the price of one - Coulson, the striker, Capt, May. With the added benefit of more fodder that the clones/Loki will be aiming add so you an lay down your directorship.
Nico (Sister Grimm) - Same deal, clones to distract, great 6* and Punish damage when done right.
Blingpin - I'm not copy-pasta-ing the above anymore.

I won't be recommending as many, because everyone has very different strengths and playstyles. I prefer brute force myself, I brought Loki down with 3 x 3 sets of characters and went ham on him, and had to find out all this additional info on an alternate account (taking it slowly).

Quick Tips

Do NOT Retry (circumstantial, but 99% of the time you shouldn't). You will retry with the clones already present in the arena. IF you get incredibly lucky and the clones are extremely bunched up in one quadrant - I've seen a scenario with them at 8, 10, 12 and 1 o'clock, consider going for it. (P.S. u/PolishTamales , clones do not spawn at a quicker rate when you exit and retry)
It IS possible to TRY game the clone position if you are willing to sacrifice some lowbies to get the above point's scenario. As mentioned, the first clone is very often at the 10 o'clock positioning. If you sacrifice lower level characters by just running in circles for 10 seconds and dying THEN retrying, there's a chance the clones will spawn near each other in that one quadrant.
If you get by a Sceptre Bolt TAG A DIFFERENT CHARACTER IMMEDIATELY. Don't take the damage over time unnecessarily. Although sometimes you get frozen and die, but welp.
Be vigilant. Roll, Tumble, Be Mobile, Use i-frames, Don't use long animation attacks. Brute force works, but only for deep rosters. With proper avoidance, and the ability to string out the full 2 minutes, Loki can be brought down with less than 10 characters.
It's a 10 character minimum (I assure you.)
VS Tickets now actually have value.

###In Conclusion

GLHF farming Cho. And thank you NM for a little bit more spice added to the game, but get that &(#$&(#$ UI changed back, its hard to evaluate team setups, etc. etc. see rest of the sub's complaints.

##Edit Log:

Changed Min/Max Values for VS Bonus Rewards based on more information
Changed effectiveness of brute force team (more anecdotal, also more effective)
Added Bios as possible bonus reward
Edited fact that 10-12 Sequence can change. HP Levels stay the same.

###Shameless Plug

This guide brought to you by the maniacs at Suicide Squad (Lvl 25) - Always recruiting, join us and come hear it from us first because we can never shut up on LINE or Alliance Chat (Seriously, your device might explode from the amount of stuff we talk about, and sometimes you learn seriously good stuff like how to be better at gaem).

Hit up u/Goodsituation or myself here on reddit with a PM, or contact Badsituation, iNhArc or Roenism on LINE.

Posted Jan 21, 2016, 3:46 AM UTC · edited

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