Dark Dimension III: Dread The Darkness is the ultimate endgame content in Marvel Strike Force, and I begin fighting the second mission after five days of attacking the first mission. 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 earn a 5-Red Star Ultimus.
My Dread The Darkness eligible characters:
- Phoenix – 109,809 power, Level 75, Gear 14, Abilities Levels 7-7-7-5 – 7 Stars, 6 Red Stars
- Punisher – 103,438 power, Level 75, Gear 14, Ability Levels 7-6-7-5 – 7 Stars, 6 Red Stars
- Captain Marvel – 100,813 power, Level 75, Gear 14, Ability Levels 7-6-7-5 – 7 Stars, 5 Red Stars
- Ultron – 68,148 power, Level 75, Gear 14, Ability Levels 7-7-7-5 – 7 Stars, 0 Red Stars
- SHIELD Trooper – 77,694 power, Level 75, Gear 14, Ability Levels 7-6-5 – 7 Stars, 4 Red Stars
- Black Panther – 104,770, Level 75, Gear 14, Ability Levels 7-6-7-5 – 7 Stars, 6 Red Stars
Dread The Darkness – Mission 2
Ms. Marvel, 21,540,804 enemy health
05.04.20 – May the 4th Be With You. I fully expect to get my butt kicked in this battle and it will likely be ugly. Here we go.
32 enemies will need to be defeated on this board with Luke Cage, Star-Lord, JJ, Ms. Marvel, Captain America, Wasp, Captain Marvel and Ant-Man on the screen to start. My SHIELD Trooper is dead already and my CM takes a few hits and is in the red but Phoenix is looking to save her (for now). Phoenix does her thing and weakens the enemies, but weaken them is all I can hope for as my team is dead before I can kill a single enemy.
05.05.20 – I almost missed getting this attack in, fighting it after 11 pm ET while in bed. I took photos of the battle to help me remember so I could report the results here.
Starting with all 32 enemies my focus was on reducing that number however I could. Star-Lord was the lone enemy with red health, so he became the first to kill off and after Phoenix did her thing it left several enemies in red health. Ant-Man became my next target based on his lower health and I was able to kill him off before my team fell apart completely. In the end I left 30 of 32 enemies and 6 remaining on-screen – JJ, Luke Cage, Captain America, Wasp, Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel. JJ and CA are both in red health when I get ready to attack again tomorrow.
05.06.20 – Day 3 and JJ is in my sights. I start with CM’s ultimate and have her almost dead. For the first time in 3 battles my SHIELD Trooper survives to be stealthy by Phoenix as the enemy lands several attacks and Phoenix is about to make her big change. Ultimus eliminates JJ and more enemies arrive – another CM, Groot and The Thing. Phoenix does her thing and the original enemy Captain Marvel is almost dead, so Punisher finishes her off, then my CM kills Luke Cage. Now 27 of 32 remain as Ultimus uses his ultimate on Captain America and he is down prompting another Wasp and Captain America to join along with Ant-Man. I take aim at Groot and land a couple of hits before they decide they have had enough and wipe out my 4 remaining characters in 5 turns.
05.07.20 – Day 4 will begin with 26 enemies remaining of the 32 that I began facing. It appears that this will take a while…
With Wasp in yellow health and all others in green I do not like my attack options given Wasp’s elusiveness. I decide that Groot is the most annoying character on the screen for this game mode, so I set my sights on him and work his health down. Dark Phoenix is about to do her big swoop ultimate and, surprisingly, all of my characters are still alive. I kill off Groot and watch it all fall apart after that as I get Ant-Man and Wasp to low red health while nothing else is noteworthy.
05.08.20 – I am a few days away from adding a 6th Gear 14 character, Black Panther, to my roster to fight this third section of the Dark Dimension. After that I need to really focus hard on healers/revivers to try and better suit a team for this game mode. For now, my 459k team referenced above will have to do.
I start with 8 enemies on the screen and 25/32 remaining. Ant-Man and Wasp are low red health, Captain America, The Thing and one Captain Marvel are yellow, and another Wasp as well as Ms. Marvel and the other CM are green. The low health Wasp had a dodge buff on, but with CM going first for me and her ultimate not be avoidable I target Wasp and kill her and Ant-Man with one hit. Phoenix takes the big hit from CM and is Dark Phoenix now, but eliminates Captain America in the process. My Phoenix is down and I trade her out for The Thing on the other side, and my CM finishes off one of the enemies’ CMs. Ultimus takes out Wasp and then gets killed off and I am about to be done as I am down to two. Two hits on Ms. Marvel are not enough and then I get killed off to finish the day.
05.09.20 – Day 6 of attacks was a lot like Day 2 as I forgot to fight until 11:50 pm ET. Luckily I got the attack in starting with 19 enemies to beat and Ms. Marvel in red health serving as the lone hanging fruit. After knocking Ms. Marvel off, however, things did not go well as I was able to get Star-Lord down to red health but that was as far as I got.
05.10.20 – Day 7 is here and this is really dragging out. The enemy still has 9.9 million of 21.5 million health remaining, so while I am not half done in terms of enemies to beat, I am past the halfway point with health.
I have 18 enemies remaining with 8 on the board – Star-Lord in red health, one CM in yellow and the other 6 bad guys in green. I take out Star-Lord immediately and they start picking my team apart, but Phoenix stealths the team and gives me some slight hope. Phoenix sucks the life down on the enemies and a Ultimus minion knocks off Black Widow and the Phoenix ultimate kills off the lower health CM. Reinforcements arrive in Captain America, Black Widow, Jessica Jones, The Thing and Groot as 9 of the 14 remaining enemies are on-screen. Another annoying Ms. Marvel taunt and luckily my CM gets her ultimate to kill MM and Luke Cage. A Punisher AoE takes out Wasp leaving 6 enemies on-screen and 11 to go, but that is as far as I can get.
05.11.20 – Day 8 on the second mission of Dark Dimension 3 and the enemies have 6.8m health remaining of the 21.5 million health they started with. This is beginning to get drawn out a bit longer than I had expected, but at least progress is made daily after 3.1m health being removed yesterday.
I start with 11 of 32 enemies remaining and now 10 on the screen. It’s time to start taking them out to hopefully see the light at the end of the tunnel. The first attack is from CM who removes the weak CM from their lineup, but all of the remaining enemies are in green health. Phoenix goes stealth and is quickly changed to Dark Phoenix which adds the defense down on all enemies and drains significant health from all, but is then killed quickly. Ultimus uses his ultimate on Black Widow, the weakest enemy on the board, and she is now in the red, then Punisher and SHIELD Trooper finish her off. JJ cleanses and I take several hits leaving just CM and Ultimus. One attack on Ant-Man brings him to yellow health but they quickly wipe the floor with me and we’re done for today. At this pace I am thinking Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest to finish this one off.
05.12.20 – Day 9 will begin with 4.5m health remaining for the enemies, down 2.3m from yesterday. 459k power heads into battle…
9 of 32 enemies remain, but all are green health except for Ant-Man at like 49% and in the yellow. CM hits him first and then Phoenix puts the stealth on, gets transformed, and begins her nuke work which adds the defense down across the board, but JJ cleanses. Ultron adds troops and Punisher kills off Ant-Man, and I and targeting JJ now to try to and help this go faster another day. I lose Dark Phoenix and a couple of Ultron minions before getting JJ to the red, then with just CM and Ultron left my CM gets her basic to kill off JJ. While only 2 kills for today, I feel better about removing Jessica Jones from that team for tomorrow and beyond.
05.13.20 – Day 10 will begin with 2.7m health on the enemies after knocking off 1.8m yesterday. The one big change is I am replacing SHIELD Trooper with Black Panther who I just got to Gear 14 this morning, which brings my total team power to 486,978. Those final few Superior Unique Orange Gear pieces were a real pain, but I chose not to refresh and waste my crystals and let it happen organically. While I do not anticipate this being a huge difference, I am hoping his stronger damage and armor stats will have a positive impact on my future battles.
7 of 32 enemies remain as I start this battle, all 7 are on the screen and 6 are yellow health. Captain Marvel is up with her ultimate attack ready to target Star-Lord, a character I hate facing in Dark Dimension battles given how he gives out ability energy. CM does not kill Star-Lord, but Black Panther does and he gets the extra attack. The Phoenix nuke sequence has begun, and now I have she nukes Captain America off the map and weakens the rest before she is killed. Ultron is able to remove CM from the battle to leave Groot, Luke Cage and two The Thing characters and set up tomorrow’s battle given I am now down to just Ultron and CM. Ultron kills one The Thing off and then is overwhelmed by the remaining enemies as I should clear this mission tomorrow with relative ease.
05.14.20 – My 11th day should be my last on Mission #2, and if I play it correctly and have decent RNG (luck) I am hoping I can get a good, solid first attack on Mission #3 today as well. The enemy health shows 747k heading into this battle.
I am gambling a bit on this and sitting Phoenix out of the battle in hopes that I can win with 4 or 5 of my heroes alive to start the 3rd mission. This puts my team power at 454k fighting against 3 enemies – The Thing (red), Luke Cage (~50%) and Groot (yellow). It takes 4 hits to kill The Thing and now I can focus on Groot and LC. The mismatch is evident, and with no big hitters on the enemy side my main goal is surviving with as close to full health and refreshed cool downs as possible. The victory is mine and 250k gold, 2k Mega Orb Fragments and 200 T4 Ability Materials are the reward.
