5.2 Explored 100% - Tips and Advice

I'm not a very patient person so I wrapped up 100% exploration of 5.2 today and my god was it horrible. I thought I'd help people out with tips where I can, although it is almost guaranteed to drain your stash and units no matter your skill level. I think someone said they did it for 300 units and I have to say that's one of the more impressive feats I've heard in this game. Anyway, here's a rundown by quest:

Main champs used: R3 5* BP, R4 4* Hyperion, R5 CapWWII, R4 5* Psylocke, R5 Voodoo, R5 Thor, R5 Ultron, R5 Vision, R5 Daredevil

• 5.2.1: This one is easy. Hyperion was a workhorse here, as was Black Panther to just bleed them dry without specials. Thor is good too since just a few L1s will end a fight.Toughest Fight: N/A
• 5.2.2: Again, Hype and BP did work. Each path has different local nodes but none of them are very difficult. Toughest Fight: Stun Immune Hyperion
• 5.2.3: I think I hated Buffet more than Masochist (see below) simply because Dexterity is tough to avoid with how much evasion is required. But aside from the fights taking a while due to the healing, it wasn't too bad. Most of the local nodes aren't bad, but BE WARNED of the Punisher with Spite linked node at the bottom of the map. Not only does Spite trigger power gain, his specials are all Unblockable. It was so hard to keep him from his L2 and I hadn't brought DD for this path because I didn't see the linked Spite node. Toughest Fight: Said Punisher
• 5.2.4: My motto for Masochist was "Embrace the Debuffs". In other words, the key to Masochist is not to avoid debuffs. The key is to trigger as many debuffs as possible. As such, my workhorses here were Thor and Black Panther. BP's bleed just ate right through the regen and I maxed Despair for this one to help out a bit. Because his bleed was already triggering Masochist, I was free to parry at will. With Thor, Masochist removes his Armor Break but not his stun which is really nice and his damage overpowers the regen easily. He was my MVP against that damn Magik up the middle. FYI there's a really long Caltrops path that sucks, too. It's doable without bleed immune if you max WP and Coag but if you stack more than two bleeds on yourself you'll die quick. Toughest Fight: That Limbo Bimbo
• 5.2.5: Diggity Dave's video explains how to fight Bane better than I could ever hope to. Some items used here just because the paths are so long that mistakes were made eventually. Toughest Fight: None really but I struggled with King Groot a bit
• 5.2.6: For God's sake, Kabam. The Collector is the single worst fight in all of MCOC. I'd honestly rather fight LoL Maestro again. At least there's a chance you can get a combo going against him. There's just nothing you can do about The Collector. His L1 is possible to evade, but I could never evade the very last hit of the second part (the skinny laser) and it would always transfer Bane and stun me and kill me quick. DD is ok for the first half of his health but his evade stops working eventually. My MVP was Psylocke because I would power drain him after he got over L1, which would give me L1 right back and then I just repeated to avoid his specials. Her power lock doesn't work at all despite it not being a true debuff. The fact that he randomly goes Unstoppable when low on health is such a dick move by Kabam. There's nothing you can do about it as it often happens while you're mid combo. The rest of the quest is actually pretty easy because the AI is so aggressive. There is an annoying path, though, where non-villains are power locked for the whole fight. I just said fuck it and used BP and Thor to bleed/smash through without specials but it sucked. Toughest Fight: Collector obviously but honorable mention to both Yondus. That guy sucks.

Around 1,800 units spent on top of about 250 free crystals and a moderate sized stash. This included cost of energy refills and some mastery resets. Probably around 1,200 of this was spent on The Collector alone. He's the worst.

Snagged a Skill rank-up gem which will go to either Hawkeye or I'll wait for Gwenpool.

Hope this helps and good luck.