MSF: Fear The Darkness - Mission #12

Fear The Darkness is the ultimate endgame content in Marvel Strike Force, and I began fighting about two 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 10, 11 and 12 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 12

Star-Lord, 1.42 million power

07.07.19 – 21 enemies stand between me and victory including 2 Captain Americas, Star-Lord, Quake, Cable, Winter Soldier and Kree Cyborg who start the battle on-screen. I decide to go after Star-Lord and the Captain America beside him immediately because both pass ability energy to teammates. I lose Thanos fairly early in the battle but I have Star-Lord in the red and the first Cap below 50% health, so I continue to work on eliminating them both until I succeed. Still down a Mad Titan, Quake and the other Cap are adjacent enemies so those are the new focus. I am finding success in this 2-enemy focus with a taunter included as Quake is down, Cap is stunned and all 4 enemies remaining on-screen are in yellow health. While my team is rather low on health as well, I revive Thanos and have a SHIELD minion helping out so I am hoping I can just survive long enough to get Minn-erva to heal my squad. I take out Winter Soldier and along come Doctor Strange, another Cable and Kree Cyborg and a HAND Sentry (HS). Given Strange can revive and HS is a Top 5 most annoying enemy in Marvel Strike Force, this will be tough, but at least it is ME’s turn to heal my squad. Strange turns my highly-buffed team into a highly-debuffed team which eventually sets up the revival of Star-Lord. I am able to remove the first Cable and shortly thereafter lose Minn-erva, so the battle is about to end. Somehow Doctor Strange revives a second Star-Lord just before the battle ends which is odd given there has been just one so far. As a result, when I start again tomorrow I will have 18? of 21 enemies remaining with four with red health and four in the yellow.

07.08.19 – It’s just after midnight Eastern Time and if I fight now a busy day and family events will not get in my way (for once). My same five are ready to attack, but 17 of 21 enemies remain and only one Star-Lord. I immediately try to go after Doctor Strange, but the HS lands his Stealth buff and slows me down as I take many hits. Starting to weaken early, a Minn-erva heal gives me the boost I need as the Stealth starts to wear off. Fortunately Doctor Strange does not take too long to kill making HS my target with Star-Lord and Cap next up given their low health. After those four are down it leaves 13 enemies with the two Kree Cyborgs and Cable left on-screen. However only a couple of attacks later reinforcements arrive in Star-Lord, Cable, another Kree Cyborg, Winter Soldier and a SHILED Operative, the latter of which gets my focus. While I am able to take out the SO, I lose both Thanos and Black Widow and then revive Thanos. With Cable and a Kree Cyborg in the red they will get my offensive focus. I take out Cable but lose Fury and have Minn-erva up with just her, Thanos and Captain Marvel alive against 5 enemies. ME can choose to heal her team fully or revive a downed teammate which is a tough choice, but given my 3 are all red or yellow health I go for the heal in hopes that I can revive the next turn. However, this move kills off the weak Kree Cyborg and the enemies immediately add Quake, Captain America and another Cable to their ranks. Now I am focusing on Star-Lord and I get him down to red health before Cap taunts. Thanos is down, then BW, then Captain Marvel and I am not even going to get another turn as Minn-erva joins them and this battle is over fast.

07.09.19 – Another early morning where I fight my FTD battle early in an effort to make my workday easier. 9 of 21 enemies remain and 7 are on-screen – Star-Lord (red), Winter Soldier, Cable & Kree Cyborg (all yellow health) and Captain America, Quake and Cable, all above 50% health. I am going to start by going after the weaker enemies and see how far I can get… I stun Winter Soldier right off which leads to Cap taunting and a plethora of enemy attacks, but I finally take out Star-Lord a bit later. I am able to take out both Winter Soldier and Kree Cyborg just as the final two enemies join the fight, Quake and Cable. Now 6 of 21 enemies remain and I am hopeful that I can play this correctly. I am able to take out one of the Cables after a Quake AoE, but I stunned the other Quake to keep the two from hitting me too close together. Quake concerns me, and I have a Quake, Cable and Cap on the right side, so I am going to focus on these three and see how this goes. I take out Quake first and have the other two in the red with the left side Cable and Quake both above 50% health. This continues to work well as Cap and then Cable are dead leaving just Quake and Cable from the left side to finish this one. I stun Quake then use a few attacks to finish her off, then use only basic abilities on Cable to finish off the battle and be prepared for Mission #13. My rewards for the win are 200k gold and 2k Mega 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): Captain Marvel, Star-Lord, Thanos, Minn-erva and Jessica Jones (263k) – My opening battle on this Mission saw me weaken their Star-Lord to red health and only reduce the health of the other enemies by 20-30%.

Day 1, Battle 1 (2 total): Captain Marvel, Star-Lord, Thanos, Minn-erva and Jessica Jones (263k) – Immediately working on removing Star-Lord, Captain Marvel’s ultimate attack is up first. I then start navigating the Captain Americas taunting efforts and look to remove Quake to setup a successful battle. I am able to take out their main attackers and have all in red before the Hand Sentry and Doctor Strange arrive, but they present real problems. Strange is able to get two annoying revives to come back to the battle (Star-Lord and Quake), but I navigate around that and remove them, Strange and the Hand Sntry when a SHIELD Operative and more arrive. Given my disdain for the SHIELD Operative on these boards, I time her stealth/heal ability well and remove her fast. However this leaves too much offense on the board for the bad guys and I lose Minn-erva and Thanos and then the team crumbles with 11 of 21 enemies remaining.

Day 2, Battle 2 (3 total): Phoenix, Storm, Black Panther, Nick Fury and Vision (290k) – I wanted to try this (less than ideal) combination out to see if I can keep Storm alive and stack Charges and get a massive attack, but it did not work out as well as I hoped. In the end 3 enemies remain, Cap in red health and two Cables in yellow health as Phoenix did some massive damage, but it was not enough for the win.

Day 2, Battle 3 (4 total): Quake & Black Widow (108k) – I was hoping the 2-woman attack from these two could kill off Cap and contain the Cables, but they could not. No progress to note.

Day 3, Battle 1 (4.5 total): Captain Marvel, Star-Lord, Thanos, Minn-erva and Jessica Jones (268k) – I chose this team because they are so good at picking off weak enemies, refreshing cooldowns and going into the next battle at full strength. I take out a Cable, then Cap, then the final Cable as this group does not disappoint and I get the easy win.