MSF: Fear The Darkness Live Blog - Mission #13

Fear The Darkness is the ultimate endgame content in Marvel Strike Force, and I began fighting about three weeks ago with each board taking 1-3 days to complete for the most part. While I admitted before that this team (below) may not be an ideal team makeup for this game mode, I am going to live blog my daily attempts as I look to defeat the Dark Dimension and open Ultron.

Also be sure to check out the video linked in the graphic below from Marvel Strike Force Envoy YouTuber Khasino as he reviews Fear The Darkness Battles 13 in the video linked. Note that Khasino’s content is Rated PG-13 (language).

My Fear The Darkness eligible characters:

Black Panther – 70,663 power, Level 70, Gear 13, Abilities Levels 6-6-6-5 – 7 Stars, 6 Red Stars
Minn-erva – 52,249 power, Level 70, Gear 13, Ability Levels 6-6-6-5 – 6 Stars, 4 Red Stars
Black Widow – 50,719 power, Level 70, Gear 13, Ability Levels 6-6-6-4 – 6 Stars, 4 Red Stars
Thanos – 50,173 power, Level 70, Gear 13, Ability Levels 6-6-6-5 – 7 Stars, 2 Red Stars
Captain Marvel – 48,132 power, Level 70, Gear 13, Ability Levels 7-6-6-5 – 6 Stars, 2 Red Stars
Nick Fury – 61,554 power, Level 70, Gear 13, Ability Levels 6-6-7-5 – 6 Stars, 5 Red Stars

Fear The Darkness – Mission 13

Ms. Marvel, 1.84 million power

07.09.19 – Using the same starting five as I have throughout most of this journey, I have 26 total enemies to defeat to get the win here. The starting 7 for the bad guys are Ms. Marvel, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, 2 Gamoras and 2 Black Panthers. I start off stunning and attacking Doctor Strange, and I quickly see that the offensive firepower of these enemies will make this very difficult. I actually fight this battle twice just to see if the result is different (I quit the first battle when it went south), but both times I get a similar result. I have Strange below 50% health and all others still in the green when I lose Minn-erva, the sign that the battle is nearly over. A few hits later and I am dead without having defeated a single enemy.

07.10.19 – I am hoping for a much better showing today. Strange is the main target as I am hoping I can knock him off rather quickly. I hit Gamora and Strange (adjacent targets) a few times and get Strange into the red before losing Black Widow. Minn-erva revives her then a few hits later Strange is down, but then so is Minn-erva. I hate this, but I accept the trade-off and continue. I lose BW again and am working on one of the Black Panthers who is in the red, but Charged. I am hoping to kill him off soon but it really does not matter as my 3 remaining are no match for the enemies on-screen. Miserable failure, but at least Doctor Strange is dead for tomorrow.

07.11.19 – Day 3 on this battle and 25 of 26 remain when I start. Ugh. Luckily Black Panther is nearly dead so 3 attacks and I finish him off. Now I have a pocket of 4 enemies on the left (Gamora, BP, Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel) with another Gamora on the right. I head left to get some (hopeful) chain attacks and I am able to get Gamora to the red with BP yellow. A stun from BW contains their BP and Thanos finished Gamora off as I continue to work on the left side. Once I finish BP off a plethora of baddies join the other side including Mordo, Captain America, 2 Cables and Venom. Since Gamora on the right side is red health I want to finish her off first even though Mordo is such a pain to face for my team. Luckily I get a full round of hits from my team and an assist and she is dead leaving 21 of 26 enemies to kill. Now 7 enemies are on screen and Mordo lands his AoE with heal blocks and Venom attacks as well, so all but Thanos are blocked. Thank goodness for Minn-erva’s heal being able to work through heal block as I was in a tough spot and ME healed the team. I have Mordo down to almost half health when he attempts to blind me and it is unsuccessful. I am unable to kill off Mordo before a barrage of attacks and it comes back to haunt me badly. Now I have Mordo in the red along with 3 of my characters including ME. ME finishes him off and is dead the next attack, as is Thanos. The enemies take me apart from here leaving me with 20 of 26 enemies remaining when I start up tomorrow.

07.12.19 – Starting with 20 of 26 enemies remaining on day #4 is not terribly encouraging, but at least I am in far better shape than yesterday. I start with 6 enemies on-screen – Captain America (yellow health), 2 Cables, Venom, Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man (all green health). I decide to remove Cap from the board as quickly as I can to keep him from taunting and passing ability energy to his teammates. I take some hits but finish him off and start to focus on the Cables to remove some offense, but my plan is to try and get 3-4 of these enemies into the red before I finish anyone off. I get both Cables and Venom into the red with Spidey yellow, and decide to finish off Venom. I lose BW, then a counter attack kills a Cable and a few hits later ME and Captain Marvel are in the red, so ME heals which kills off the other Cable and Venom. 5 new enemies arrive – Drax, BP, another Spidey, Gamora and a new Cable. I lose Thanos and try to work my way around their Drax, but the taunt is an annoyance. I take a ton of hits and just like that the battle is over with 16 enemies remaining…

07.13.19 – I start off with a stun of the taunting Drax and then land a couple of hits while calling SHIELD minions before a barrage of attacks by the bad guys has Captain Marvel suddenly a hit from dead. Defense Up from Fury and a few attacks take place before she gets a turn and self heals to put her in a better spot, but 3 attacks later she is dead already and Minn-erva is below half health. Not a great start. ME gets a heal for the team and my four all near full health, then Thanos finishes off the weaker Spider-Man. ME’s next turn sees her revive Captain Marvel and BW stuns the other Spidey to start the focus on him, then Thanos taunts and takes about 15 hits before he is down. Minn-erva is next to see the streak of attacks and I lose her, so this battle is crap. I hit Black Panther and Gamora, followed by a now-taunting Drax, to hopefully set up a stronger performance tomorrow, but even that is a failure as Black Panther dies from Captain Marvel’s ultimate ability. I finally fall with 4 enemies on screen (Drax and Gamora in the red) and 13 of 26 remaining.

07.14.19 – Well, I like a challenge and this is certainly qualifying. The main Fear The Darkness screen says the enemies have 7.1 million of 14.7 million health remaining. Awesome. 5 days of battles and I am halfway done, lol. I cannot see how Black Panther would help this team in any way, so I am back to the same 5 – Thanos, Minn-erva, Captain Marvel, Black Widow and Nick Fury. I start with 4 enemies on the screen and I will have to remove Drax due to the taunt which really messes up my plans to get Cable into the red before I kill anyone. 6 attacks is what is takes to kill off Drax and I start working on Cable, but one hit on him and 4 newbs show up – Gamora, Spider-Man, Mordo and Captain America. I take out the older Gamora and start on Cable who has 4 bleeds over his head, so it does not take much to kill him off. Now at 10 of 26 remaining, I have 5 of those 10 on the screen and all are green health. ME heals the team and Cap taunts, so my offensive focus is irrelevant, especially when Cap blocks Captain Marvel’s attempt to dispel the taunt. Thanos taunts, gets hit a ton and dies, then is revived, then I start working on Gamora as I work around a Ms. Marvel taunt. Another Cap taunt and my attacks are spread around too thin as I take a lot of damage. I have Gamora in the red, Captain America just under 50% health and the others in the green, but ME, Thanos and BW are all red for me and Fury is yellow. ME lasts only a few more hits before dying and Thanos follows, so I use basic attacks only on Cap and watch my team fall apart. Tomorrow will be no easier with 10 of 26 enemies remaining.

07.16.19 – My schedule caught up with me yesterday and I failed to log an attempt. With a couple of days where I may not be able to log an attack this weekend already, missing a day on this really frustrates me.

To the battle, I have 10 of 26 enemies remaining and 5 on-screen – Gamora (red), Captain America (yellow), Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel and Mordo (green). I decide to take out Gamora first since her offense is tough to handle in the Dark Dimension battles, then Mordo needs to go away to win this battle faster. Cap is in the red, but I am saving his kill for an AoE, a taunt or until after reinforcements come. Without Gamora this foursome is not very tough on offense, so as I start picking away at Mordo I am more and more pleased with my decision. I get Mordo to red health and manage to have Cap still in the game when Captain Marvel’s ultimate comes available, but I am going to use the basic to keep Cap from dying and bringing in reinforcements before Mordo is eliminated. I am able to get a well-times stun of Mordo and set things up perfectly for a Minn-erva heal to kill off Cap, Mordo and Spidey in one hit, leaving Ms. Marvel alone on-screen for a few seconds. A turn later, now with my Defense Up from Fury, the reinforcements arrive.

I enter the home stretch with 6 of 26 enemies remaining and all of them on-screen – 2 Ms. Marvels, 2 Venoms, Doctor Strange and Cable. My focus will be Strange first followed by Cable and/or a Venom and then I will see from there. As I suspected, the heal blocks from Venom are a pain, but I get Strange to 50% health before both Ms. Marvels taunt. I lose Thanos but get a SHILED minion to stealth my yellow-health Minn-erva, then stun Doctor Strange and kill him off. Now focusing on the Venom next to Cable, my plan is to work on knocking both out with a higher emphasis on Venom. I start getting low on health, but ME has a heal which gets the team back to near full health. 30+ attacks on Venom later, I lose Thanos, revive him and then Venom dies from the bleed debuffs. Cable is stunned and below 50% health, so I finish him off. Now 3 enemies remain so the other Venom will get all of my attention unless a taunt gets in the way. Eliminating Venom goes smoothly and the Ms. Marvel characters, who offer no real offensive threat will be a tedious battle, but will result in a sure win today. If anyone gets to this point and struggles to have the offensive firepower to finish off the Ms. Marvel enemies, may I suggest a character who can stun (Black Widow, Fury’s minions) as this was key to my success.

My reward for the win is 200k gold and 8k Gold Orb Fragments.

After opening Ultron:

After opening Ultron you fight these battles once again in order to power him up and gain more rewards, only this time you have a lot more orange gear and (hopefully) more Gear 13 characters. While I am not going to live blog these battles, I will share my teams and results in case that helps others see what is effective. With the addition of Storm last night, I now have 12 characters at Gear 13: Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Jessica Jones, Minn-erva, Nick Fury, Phoenix, Quake, Star-Lord, Storm, Thanos and Vision.

Day 1, Battle 1 (1 total): Phoenix, Quake, Nick Fury, Black Widow & Black Panther (298k) – I love how this team, Phoenix in particular, can weaken a fresh, full-strength team of bad guys. I take out Doctor Strange and leave 2 in red and 2 in yellow health for my go-to team to start chipping away at the 25 remaining enemies.

Day 1, Battle 2 (2 total): Captain Marvel, Star-Lord, Thanos, Minn-erva and Jessica Jones (268k) – I quickly take out 3 enemies and weaken a Gamora but the reinforcements are tough. The healing immunity from Mordo and Venom are more than my Jessica Jones can handle, and while I take the other Gamora and a Spider-Man down with me, I die with 20 of 26 enemies remaining and a good idea of how I want to attack this team tomorrow.

Day 2, Battle 1 (3 total): Phoenix, Quake, Nick Fury, Black Widow & Black Panther (298k) – As I said before, I love how this team, Phoenix in particular, can weaken a fresh, full-strength team of bad guys. As a result they are in to weaken this group and help my other team advance (hopefully). 20 of 26 enemies remain and after several turns this is going as I wished as the Dark Phoenix ultimate has them all in yellow health. I take out Mordo first then the rest one-by-one leaving just Cap and Ms. Marvel until the next group joins. I Continue to apply Slow debuffs on everyone I can as this really gives me an advantage. I kill off Gamora and their Ms. Marvel with another Dark Phoenix ultimate and eventually they are too strong, killing me off with 13 of 26 enemies remaining.

Day 2, Battle 2 (4 total): Captain Marvel, Star-Lord, Thanos, Minn-erva and Jessica Jones (268k) – I go after Black Panther and kill him off after a few hits, but my Minn-erva is already in yellow health and reinforcements arrive. Spider-man is just a hit or two from dead, but 3 dodged attacks later I realize the game is rigged, lol. Spidey dodges another 3 attacks before getting hit with an unaviodable attack, and I consider deleting the lol. I revive a dead Thanos and look to kill off Cable and Drax who are in the red. It take a few attacks, but I get them both and it is down to 9 of 26 remaining. I kill off Gamora and the final wave of enemies appear as the final 8 are all on-screen. With Doctor Strange on the screen I shift all focus onto him and die a slow, painful death with DS at about 60% health and two others in yellow health.

Day 3, Battle 1 (5 total): Phoenix, Quake, Nick Fury, Black Widow & Black Panther (298k) – I start by putting everything I have into Doctor Strange to take him out, then Spidey since he was red health. Next, removing the heal blockers is key to have my team where I want them for the 14th Mission. Mordo’s self-heal is a real momentum-killer, but after many attacks and a close-call with Minn-erva, I kill him off and the two Venoms are the target now. Once I remove one Venom it becomes clear that I have this battle as they no longer have the tools needed to weaken and kill my characters. Ms. Marvel is the last of the enemies I have to kill off and her self-heal ability made this tricky, so I had to use the ultimate abilities of Star-Lord and Captain Marvel to ensure the victory did not take up another 10-15 minutes of my life.