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Agents and Heroes

Agents and Heroes: You and Your Team

Your agent and your team of heroes are the centerpiece of your MAA gaming. Strong, versatile agents and a diverse band of well-trained heroes will help you have fun and succeed in the game.

Classes

Probably the most important aspect of MAA characters (agents and heroes combined) is character classes. There are six character classes. Your agent and your heroes are all defined by their classes. The subject is discussed more broadly on the site, but this is a brief “cheat sheet” for you to use.

Blaster
Blasters tend to deal a great deal of damage to the foe, often via energy attacks. They are strong against Bruisers – they gain Focused Attacks when attacked by Bruisers, which guarantees their attacks against them will hit and do critical damage. They also ignore a Bruiser’s defense, and take reduced damage from Bruisers. They are weak against Tacticians – Tacticians gain a second “bonus” attack after attacking a Blaster, and take reduced damage from Blaster attacks.
Bruiser
Bruisers rely on their great physical strength. They are strong against Scrappers – they become “enraged” when attacking or attacked by Scrappers, which increases all of their stats. They are weak against Blasters – they take critical damage from Blasters, and their defensive statistics do them no good. They also do reduced damage when attacking Blasters.
Generalist
Generalists have no class bonuses or penalties. Your Agent will begin the game as a Generalist, until you acquire another uniform for him which gives him a class designation.
Infiltrator
Infiltrators rely on speed, stealth and quickness to deal damage. They are strong against Tacticians, gaining “Combat Reflexes,” which allows them to counter-attack against attacks from Tacticians or any other class. They are weak against Scrappers, who gain “Close Quarters Combat” when attacking or attacked by Infiltrators.
Scrapper
Scrappers are the melee fighters of the group. They are strong against Infiltrators, gaining “Close Quarters Combat,” which gives them a follow-up attack; their attacks avoid their opponents’ avoidance abilities. They are weak against Bruisers, which become enraged when attacking, or attacked by, Scrappers.
Tactician
Tacticians tend to be the most intellectual of the classes. They are strong against Blasters, gaining a second “bonus” attack when attacking, or attacked by, Blasters. They are weak against Infiltrators, who gain “Combat Reflexes” when attacking, or attacked by, Tacticians.

class icon

There are no weapons restrictions on classes for agents – any class of agent can wield any and all weapons available in the game.

Click the button to find out more about the individual heroes, as sorted by the six classes:

Heroes Sorted by Class

Click the button to learn more about earning experience quickly for your heroes, again sorted by classes:

Leveling Up Heroes by Class

three Avengers

Heroes

Let’s face it. The heroes are why we play the game. They are certainly what enticed most of us to start playing – who can resist the opportunity to play their favorite heroes and heroines in endless comic-derived battles? We know (some of) the storylines, we know (some of) the complex relationships between the heroes (and the villains – who often become the heroes after a time), and it’s just too cool having them recruited and on our team. (I’m sure the DC fans feel the same way about the games featuring their favorite heroes, but I’m a Marvel guy from way back, and the option of playing Batman or Green Lantern just doesn’t resonate with me the same way as the idea of playing Wolverine or the Hulk. I’m assuming that most people reading this feel the same way.)

Having said all of that, and setting aside our personal preferences a bit, we need to know which heroes will pay off for us most in gameplay, and which ones will underwhelm us. (Who would have thought that Captain Britain, a relatively obscure Marvel character, would be more useful in most game situations than Daredevil, one of Marvel’s signature heroes? Who would have thought that Goth teenager Nico Minoru would be light-years more effective in most game situations than Iron Man, the franchise leader?)

We also need to know some strategies for recruitment and leveling, to make the heroes we work so hard to acquire pay off for us in the end. And unless you’re a free-spending MAA player, yes indeed, you will work (well, play) hard to recruit heroes, especially in the first 100 levels or so.

Note: I know full well that you and I both recruit heroes at least in part because we like them. I remember asking a guy with only a dozen or so heroes in his roster why he had recruited Deadpool – a 135 CP hero – instead of the 6-8 low-cost heroes he could have recruited. He replied that Deadpool was one of the reasons he began playing MAA, that Deadpool was the first hero he had ever dressed as in cosplay, and so forth. It might not have been the logical thing for him to do in recruiting Deadpool, but it raised his level of enjoyment in playing the game dramatically, and who can argue with that?

Recruitment: Early Levels

In the early days, you are “given” two free heroes: Black Widow and Iron Man. You have a single team ready to do battle. Your Agent is a generalist, Iron Man is a Blaster, and Black Widow is an Infiltrator. You’re covered pretty well in classes, and you have two instantly recognizable Avengers on your side. Nice start. Within a few minutes of game play, you’re led to recruit your next hero, Hawkeye, a Tactician and another Avenger. Now you can choose from three heroes as to which two will fight for you in battles, and you’re already starting to grapple with the idea of which classes will do best by you in each battle.

When you unlock PVP during the early missions (do so as soon as possible, even if you have no intention of playing PVP battles at the moment), you will be given the choice of these heroes (each will cost you 15 CP later):

15 CP Heroes

Setting aside any personal preferences or lust to play any of those five, you have to choose which one will best serve your immediate needs. Naturally, the choice isn’t simple. Cyclops is probably the most powerful hero in that list, but you already have a Tactician. Same with Ms. Marvel; she is offensively stronger than Iron Man, another blaster, but you already have him. You should consider getting one of the two classes you don’t have yet, which gives you the choice of Iron Fist and She-Hulk. She-Hulk is a good choice because you will need a Bruiser in the early going. Same for Iron Fist; you won’t go many missions without wanting a Scrapper. Notice I’m leaving out Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman. That’s because you have a better Infiltrator already in Black Widow (though Sue’s shields will come in handy in early missions), and you want to consider getting another class covered. If you’re choosing between She-Hulk and Iron Fist, the choice is pretty much even steven, though you’ll find yourself playing Iron Fist far more at higher levels than you will She-Hulk (unfortunately, probably the worst Bruiser in the ranks, but still excellent at low levels).

Spending your First Command Points

You’re going to need to recruit heroes pretty much as fast as you can get them. Why? Because recruiting heroes gives you more options in game play, but it also unlocks more chapters of Season 1, which you need to be able to play as soon as you reach them. Therefore, I’d recommend focusing on the 15 CP heroes early on. The list of freebies for PVP is the same as the 15 CP heroes, so here’s your chance to get all five on your team. Get them all and get them raised in level as quickly as possible. This gives you eight heroes, which unlocks the first five chapters of Season 1. That’s 26 missions (25 regular and one “premium” mission in Chapter 2 which needs Iron Man to unlock). Not bad for advancement and fun.

Recruiting (Slightly) More Expensive Heroes

Because obtaining command points is not easy at low levels, you will (unless you're buying them with gold) find yourself hoarding command points and spending them as efficiently as possible. That means you’re considering the heroes at the 23 CP price point. That’s a mixed bag. Let’s see where you are with your eight heroes:

Two Tacticians, two Blasters, one Bruiser, two Infiltrators, and one Scrapper. By this point you’re probably coming to the conclusion that you need not only more Bruisers and Scrappers, but ones with different abilities. You want to give yourself more options than two in each class. And, let’s face it, you want some more powerful heroes! Let’s look at who’s coming up for 23 CP.

23 CP Heroes

Honestly, you’re going to want to recruit all of them, if for no other reason than you can unlock Chapters 6-8 by having three more of them. Now it’s even less straightforward – which ones do you want the most? Which ones complement your style of play? Which ones are going to give you the most bang for your CP buck?

I would advise picking Colossus, Dr. Strange and Sif as your first three purchases from this list. In fact, I would hold off on buying Black Cat and Luke Cage entirely until I’d gotten some of the 33 and 48 CP heroes. Colossus is the best bruiser you’re going to see until you get to the 90 CP heroes, and Dr. Strange and Sif are outstanding members of their class that will work well for you for dozens of levels to come.

After recruiting those three, you’re going to start considering 33 CP heroes. This is, again, a very mixed bag, with some outstanding heroes and some not so strong ones.

33 CP Heroes

You’ll notice that the other three members of the Fantastic Four are in this list. Leave two of them unrecruited for a while. You want to recruit Human Torch as soon as possible; he is the most powerful Blaster you’ll see until the 90 CP level, and along with Cyclops the first strong hero most people use for PVP. Kitty Pryde is an outstanding Infiltrator for low and medium level players, and a good lower-level PVP hero. Spider-Woman used to be the worst hero in the game, but after a retrofit in 2013, she became a much stronger hero, and very much worth having. Unfortunately, Thing and Mr. Fantastic are very weak heroes, and until you need them to unlock content, you will do better by spending your CP elsewhere.

If you’ve followed this structure (and few people would; by now you probably have a few 48 or even more expensive heroes, and the gold spenders probably have a huge posse in their stable), you’re ready to consider 48 CP heroes. You still need one more to unlock Chapter 9, so you might buy Thing just to get that chapter open. Get some more command points and consider this list:

48 CP Heroes

Again, you will want all of these at some point, and not just to unlock chapters in Season 1. I’d start with Quicksilver, Storm and War Machine off this list, and fill in with others from this and the 23 and 33 CP lists as you progress.

The Big Leagues: 90 CP and Beyond

Honestly, unless you’re spending money for command points, you may have hit a wall by now: even if you’ve bought all of the heroes discussed above, you’re stuck at Chapter 10. You need one more hero to unlock Chapter 11, and five more for Chapter 12, so you’re probably desperate for heroes. While the 90 CP heroes are expensive and take time to save (or farm) for, the good thing is that there’s a whole bunch of them, and some pretty good ones in the crowd. By this point you have several heroes of each class, so you’re recruiting for more reasons than just needing more heroes or more of a particular class. Let’s see who’s available in this long list of 90 CP heroes:

90 CP Heroes

Some of the best heroes in the game are in this list. Captain America, Dr. Voodoo, Hercules, Hulk, Rogue, Thor and Wolverine are regulars in PVP, even at higher levels of play. Those, along with others like Black Panther, Captain Britain, Gambit, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Thundra and Union Jack can help you dominate in regular missions. Many of them are needed to unlock premium missions or epic boss battles. At this point you need to do some research and consideration of who you think will best represent you on the playing field. If you’re primarily a PVP player, your choices of how to spend your CP might be different that the choices of someone who prefers the regular missions, special operations, and so forth. Watch the team-up choices in the missions to get an idea of what it’s like to play heroes that you don’t yet have – though keep in mind that those team-up heroes have no ISO-8 chips, and subsequently are less powerful and more vulnerable than they would be if you had them and were giving them chips to strengthen them.

Why not save your 90, collect 45 more, and buy some of those heroes? Let’s see who’s available for 135 CP:

135 CP Heroes

The ones marked with question marks are not yet available, and it is not guaranteed that they will be 135 CP heroes.

You might be surprised to learn that many of the 90 CP heroes are stronger than some in this batch. Certainly some are outstanding – Deadpool became one of the strongest heroes in the game after he was refurbished. X-23 is surprisingly powerful, and if you can get her Horseman alternate uniform, you will terrorize the opposition with her. Domino is quite strong. Cable and Spiral are popular with many players. Bishop, Psylocke, Red Hulk and Shatterstar have their fans, though mostly in non-PVP settings. (You see Angel on a lot of PVP teams, mostly because of a goof in an earlier PVP tournament that gave him to many players who did not earn him; unfortunately, he’s entirely a support hero and not hard to defeat.) Agent Venom and Hogun are relatively untried, so there’s no consensus on how valuable they will be in gameplay. But are they worth spending the extra CP on? Outside of Deadpool and possibly some of the newer heroes such as Domino, Spiral, and (maybe) Agent Venom and Hogun, I”d recommend stocking up on some of the stronger 90 CP heroes before you set your sights on this crowd.

The Cream of the Crop?

You’d think that the 200 CP crowd would be the creme de la creme, the best of the best. Not necessarily.

200 CP Heroes

It’s a mixed bag. The ones marked with the asterisks are either not available at all, or only available on a limited basis for a few times during the year. Unfortunately, that group includes some of the best heroes in the bunch. Of the remainder, I’m most taken with Emma Frost (who used to be a dominant hero in PVP before Playdom reduced her capabilities), Ghost Rider, Havok and Mockingbird. I was able to win several of the currently unavailable heroes on this list in special operations, and of those, I find Heimdall and Nico Minoru the most powerful heroes. Ares (who isn’t often available) is popular in PVP, as is Mockingbird, Nico and Rescue. Iceman is still new, and if you didn’t get him in his Special Op, you won’t have access to him for a while, but if you did, and were savvy and fortunate enough to get his Horseman alt(s), you have yourself a powerful set of heroes. I think we’ll see a lot of Iceman/Horseman of Death in future PVP tournaments.

Virtually Unavailable

Periodically, MAA features “lockbox quests” that if completed award the player with a former villain turned hero. These are some of the most powerful characters in the game, and unfortunately, if you didn’t get one at the time, are difficult to get afterwards. The list so far:

Lockbox Heroes

Some of them, like Doom, Elektra, Juggernaut, Magneto, Omega Sentinel, Sabretooth, and Thane, are extraordinarily powerful. The only really underwhelming character on the list is Constrictor. Lesson to be learned: when you see the opportunity to win a lockbox hero, go for it!

Alternate Uniforms

Content coming soon.