Act 5.1 Guide – Marvel Contest of Champions

Marvel’s Contest of Champions by Kabam

For those players looking for info on 5.1, we made it to 100% today, and decided to share our thoughts and strategies in this guide for Marvel’s Contest of Champions. We didn’t go into profound detail about the absolute perfect champ to use against every enemy, but we did our best to explain the global nodes and harder fights, and also give some tips on champs or ability types that would come in handy. Enjoy!

Don’t miss our other Marvel’s Contest of Champions Guides:

Act 5.1 Guide – Marvel Contest of Champions

THE TEAM

We have seven 4 star champs at rank 5, and we used them all, subbing in and out depending upon the enemies we faced. Elektra (sig 60), Thor (sig 79), Capt. America WW2 (sig 79), OG Daredevil (sig 59), Vision AOU (sig 99), Scarlet Witch (sig 59), and Wolverine (sig 59).

5.1 MVP

Without a doubt, our max rank max sig Vision AOU was the all-star. He’s extremely useful at handling the AI that seems to be very defensive, preferring to store power until they reach L3. Additionally, any champ who can power lock or power drain will be very useful. Both Visions, Magik, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch (if you can get it to proc), etc. Magik’s limbo would also help with some of the global nodes that are draining your health. If we had her at r5, we would’ve used her for sure.

5.1.1 – FAIR PLAY

GLOBAL NODE – FLARE

You gain +300% attack, but degenerate 100% of your max health. The strength of the degeneration is altered by class relationships. If you have a class advantage, you only degenerate 50% of your max health over 60 seconds. If you have a class disadvantage, you degenerate 100% of your max health over 40 seconds.

THE PATHS

Four runs for 100% completion. Two easy but long paths that will remove nodes boosting the boss, and two Hard but short paths that will have you fighting enemies with unique buffs.

THE STRATEGY

The strategy here is pretty obvious: finish fights as quickly as possible, be aggressive. High attack champs will be able to survive until the end of the path with almost no issues. Since the degeneration is percentage based, bringing a high health champ won’t do you any good. They’ll die just as fast as anyone else. It’s important that you take advantage of class relationships. Take a look at the path you’re going to take, and make sure you’ll have class advantage for every fight to reduce the degen.

THE HARDEST FIGHTS

Hyperion (Stun immune, unblockable L1, unblockable L2), Mordo (+50% power gain, your power is drained every 20 seconds), Rogue (stun immune, starts with 2 bars of power), and Spider-Man (+20% enhanced abilities). There’s also a Gambit and Superior Iron-Man with unblockable L1 specials, and a Moon Knight who will be a pain in the ass if you fight him during his full moon phase.

THE BOSS

If you’re an AQ boss killer, you’ll have no issues here. Kang doesn’t come with any unique buffs to make him harder, but he is boasted by two +60% health nodes. You can remove one of them by taking the easy paths.

5.1.2 – WEAPONIZED

GLOBAL NODE – BREAKTHROUGH

The enemy starts the fight with a permanent armor buff granting +5,000 armor, but every hit you land inflicts a permanent armor break that reduces armor by -200. It takes 25 hits to cancel out the armor, but every hit after that continues to reduce the armor until you’re doing major damage.

THE PATHS

Four runs for 100% completion. Two easy but long paths, and two Hard but short paths that will have you fighting enemies with unique buffs.

THE STRATEGY

While 5.1.1 rewarded you for using high attack champs and finishing fights quickly, 5.1.2 will be quite the opposite, rewarding you for using champs who can go the distance. Champions with high health or high block proficiency will work best here, allowing you time to build up those armor breaks and take down the enemy.

THE HARDEST FIGHTS

Wolverine (+200% regen), War Machine (unblockable L2), Colossus (All or Nothing), Spider-Man (+20% enhanced abilities), and Captain America WW2 (unblockable L1) are the highlights. Just remember that on unblockable specials like War Machine’s L2, you only need to evade the first kick or punch, you can block the projectile after if your evade skills aren’t up to par. Bring a power lock/drain champ for the all or nothing Colossus, like Vision, Magik, or Hawkeye.

THE BOSS

Howard the Duck…and we thought he was kind of a pain, probably because we’re just not used to his fighting style. He has an unblockable L1 (evade the punch/kick, block the projectile), and his regen is enhanced by +200%. Fortunately, Howard works like Ultron, and a stun will cancel the regen. After the boss fight, you’ll face Moon Knight as a final enemy. Moon a Knight is powering the global node…a weird design decision. You could’ve just had Howard powering it. Whatever.

5.1.3 – BACK AND FORTH

GLOBAL NODE – FLARE

See 5.1.1 for description.

THE PATHS

Four runs for 100% completion. You will face the four champions on Outlast nodes every time. Two paths will have you fighting more enemies with unique buffs.

THE STRATEGY

See 5.1.1 for strategy. We thought this was the easiest section of the entire chapter.

THE HARDEST FIGHTS

There are four enemies (Scarlet Witch and Mordo, Antman and Juggernaut) with Outlast (reduce damage by up to 20% proportionate to missing health). Other than that, you’ll find Iron Fist (L3 bias), Deadpool X-Force (unblockable L1), Hulk and Wolverine (builds physical or energy resistance every 8 seconds), Magik (+100% power gain), Punisher (builds physical or energy resistance every 8 seconds, unblockable L2), and OG Daredevil (builds physical or energy resistance every 8 seconds, 7% chance to evade and leave you stunned for 1 second).

THE BOSS

Iron Patriot. He gains special attack damage as time goes by, generates power when striking a blocking target, and has an unblockable L2. You can beat Thor Jane Foster on a left path to remove the unblockable L2 and special attack damage increase, and Moonknight on a right path to remove kinetic reactor and enhanced armor break.

5.1.4 – TAUNTED

GLOBAL NODE – LIFE TRANSFER

You suffer a permanent degeneration, losing 2% of your max health per second, but lifestealing 125% of damage done. The lifesteal percentage is affected by class relationships (+/-25% depending upon class advantage or disadvantage).

THE PATHS

Five paths for 100% completion. You need to go to portal #3 twice, and portal #4 three times.

THE STRATEGY

Don’t panic…this is a lot easier than it sounds. We found myself at around 25% health several times, and we had no issues healing right back to full. The key is to be aggressive, constantly attacking to offset the degeneration damage…but that’s where you might start running into issues. We found the AI in 5.1 to be very defensive, preferring to save to L3. But when you face a global node like life transfer, you can’t just sit back and try to bait their L1 and L2 or you’ll die. This is where Vision really started to come in handy. We didn’t have to bait, we could just power burn if they decided to save their specials. Magik and Hawkeye would also work well too.

THE HARDEST FIGHTS

There are five unique paths, and each path will take you to a set of unique boosts applied to a path full of mystery champs (you can still see their class). Let’s go over the paths one by one:

Path #1 – They all have strike back (gains power when damaged by a special), and most of them have unblockable L2. Daredevil works wells if the L2 is a projectile. We also like Wolverine, since we never use his specials anyway. We just fill his power bar to boost our regen. And of course, Vision can stop them from ever getting to L2 with power burn.

Path #2 – They all have enhanced armor up abilities, and their special damage is increased based on armor. Thor works well here.

Path #3 – They all have enhanced bleed, and the last three have caltrops (dashing backwards causes you to bleed for 6 seconds). Bring bleed immune champs, duh.

Path #4 – They all have enhanced fury, and the last three are immune to debuff effects. Two of the three champs that are immune to debuff effects are skill champs, so bringing in Cap with high block proficiency will put you at a class disadvantage. It’s doable, but more challenging.

Path #5 – They all double the duration of stun effects, and the last one has a 7% chance to evade and leave you stunned for 1 second.

THE BOSS

Venom. He is boosted by a Falcon, who allows him perfect recollection of up to 20 effects. You can remove the boost twice out of the five times you’ll face him.

5.1.5 – OVERLOADED

GLOBAL NODE – BURDEN OF MIGHT & POWER FOCUS

With Burden of Might, your power gain is reduced by 15% for each buff active on you. Additionally, each time a buff activates on you, you lose 25% of your max power. Power focus increases your crit rate by up to 25% bases on your current power.

THE PATHS

Five paths for 100% completion. Four of the paths will remove at least two boosting nodes (optimist and strike back) from the boss. There is one hard path filled with individually buffed enemies that will not remove any boosts from the boss.

THE STRATEGY

The difficulty level turned up a notch for us starting here. We like to call this one the anti Scarlet Witch section. Anyone who is constantly gaining buffs like Scarlet Witch or Wolverine just to name a few is going to have a tough time getting enough power to unleash specials. Obviously, the strategy here is to pick champs that don’t get buffs. You know…like Vision, who we’ve basically used for everything at this point. Also keep in mind, if you have the dexterity mastery, this will interact with burden of might. If you’re evading and suffering for it, consider removing your point(s) from dexterity for this section. This is where we really started to dip into our stash of revives and potions. The enemies are pretty strong, and the global node can be very disruptive to your rhythm.

THE HARDEST FIGHTS

There’s a mystery skill champ with unblockable L1, a mystery cosmic champ with pessimist (gains fury, armor up, and health steal above 75% health), a mystery cosmic champ with optimist (gains fury, armor up, and health steal below 25% health), and a mystery cosmic champ with strike back (they gain power when you unleash a special). We can’t remember who the champs were. On the hard path, there’s a Guillotine, Ronan, and Dr. Voodoo with unblockable L2. Voodoo also has increased damage and life steal if you’re under a beneficial effect, and his regen is increased +200%. Then there was a Karnak with unblockable L1…weird.

THE BOSS

Electro…the health thief. He is boosted by those four mystery champs we mentioned above, each granting him one boost. Unblockable L1, optimist, pessimist, and strike back. Taking the paths with those boosting enemies will remove the effects and make the fight easier. Bringing ability reduction champs like Black Widow or Elektra is a sound strategy to staying alive.

5.1.6 – DARK ANGEL

GLOBAL NODE – BRUTE FORCE & KINETIC INSTIGATOR

Brute force…if you haven’t landed a hit in 6 seconds, you begin to degenerate 100% of your total health over 30 seconds. Landing a hit removes the degeneration and resets the timer. The strength of the degeneration is affected by class relationships (1.6% max health per second with a class advantage, 3.3% max health per second with no advantage, and 5% max health per second with a class disadvantage). Kinetic Instigator allows you to generate power when striking a blocking opponent.

THE PATHS

Five paths for 100% completion. This map is a little more complex, so we’ll just say take a look at it for yourself, plan out your path, and bring the appropriate champions.

THE STRATEGY

This is a lot like 5.1.4. Be aggressive, make sure you’re constantly attacking. And once again, our savior was Vision. Where other champs failed by being unable to bait out L1 and L2, Vision could just power burn and make that a non-issue, allowing us to stay aggressive and avoid the degen. Use class advantage where you can. We used quite a few revives and potions working through this one, mainly because we continually failed to bait L3, which would eventually leave us with no champs but Vision. He worked great, but we would have to heal him between fights.

THE HARDEST FIGHTS

Mordo, Magneto Marvel Now, and Groot are the main headaches, and they all have unblockable L2. Not sure why Kabam put Groot there, since he already had an unblockable L2…but whatever. Aside from that, there’s no big surprises. We think they figured that the map was challenging enough without buffing up champs too much, and they were right.

THE BOSS

Archangel. Similar to Electro in 5.1.5, Archangel is boosted by four enemies, each granting him one boost. Bleed duration increased by 100%, builds energy or physical resistance every 8 seconds, +66% armor, and enhanced abilities (+20%). We find Archangel relatively easy to fight though, so this boss fight wasn’t too bad. It was just a matter of staying alive long enough.

THE FINAL VERDICT

Kabam has received a ton of crap recently, and rightfully so. 28 days ago, they completely broke this game with the 12.0 patch. Since then, it’s been a roller coaster ride of fixing one thing just to screw something else up. That being said, we feel like the design of 5.1 was very good. Their objective was to open up Act 5 to multiple strategies instead of just one go-to, and we think it worked pretty well. Flare was really fun, and the later nodes were challenging in a good way, not in a pre-12.0 4.3.3 Juggernaut way. Also, you are constantly rewarded by making use of class advantages, which varies your attack team even further. We had a great time playing through, and we’re looking forward to 5.2.

We hope you enjoyed this Act 5.1 Guide for Marvel Contest of Champions, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave comment.

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