When Iso-8 was added to Marvel Strike Force back in late September 2020, and even today when I evaluate specific teams that are commonly used in the game, you can typically look at a fivesome and immediately place 3-4 of the Iso-8 classes on characters without much thought. But we here at Gaming-fans.com look to take your understanding of the game further to help you master the details in Marvel Strike Force. Below we will review how to use the Iso-8 classes to best prepare a very common team, the Defenders with Punisher, for battle. I will try to be specific on why I am doing things the way I am with these characters and their Iso-8, but if you prefer to just skip to the end result, I have added a TL;DR at the bottom.
Looking at the Punfenders as some call them, your team makeup is going to be Punisher and the four Defenders – Daredevil, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. You have your typical team in these Squad RPG turn-based games – a tank/taunter (Luke Cage), a healer (Iron Fist), a hard-hitting offensive character (Punisher) and strong support character (Jessica Jones) and quick character who is a bit of a attacker/support hybrid and just fits well on the team (Daredevil).
There is one Iso-8 class that I really cannot debate on this team – Luke Cage. He fits the Fortifier class perfectly as a taunting tank, so there is really not much reason to out think the room on this one. But looking at his teammates we can definitely play with other classes, all being based on how the rest of the team is used.
To start, I used Punisher as a Raider. He is an offensive character, and they almost always best fit the Striker and Raider classes, and I like to use the Raider class with characters who have a strong AoE attack and Punisher certainly fits here. In addition, I threw the Healer class on Iron Fist without much though, leaving Jessica Jones and Daredevil for the Striker and Skirmisher classes. Now I realize you do not have to use all five classes on a team of five, and on some teams it just does not fit at all, but I also know that the developers at Scopely would not have created five Iso-8 classes if they were not intended to work well together. Thus, for the purposes of this article, we will try to use all five classes. Back to DD and JJ, these final two Iso-8 roles really did not wow me as a great fit for either, so I decided to do more gameplay to ensure that I had the best handle on the topic that I could. Let’s look at the turn order of the Defenders with Punisher and see how that impacts the Iso-8 classes.
The first turn is taken by DD in any battle with the Punfenders, unless of course a faster enemy character somehow goes first and places Slow on him. For this scenario we will go with standard turn order variables. With DD taking the first turn, you want him placing the Iso-8 debuff, Vulnerable, on an enemy or enemies. This limits Daredevil to either the Skirmisher or Raider class. With Iron Fist taking the second turn, I personally want to see additional Vulnerables on the enemies to give me options, thus causing debate over Iron Fist’s Iso-8 class. JJ takes the 3rd turn and this gives the big-hitter, Punisher, a chance to have some fun. While the Raider class may look good on paper for Punisher and his AoE in this spot, and I used him there to start, what I am finding success with is using him as a Striker, targeting a Vulnerable enemy, then using the AoE to hit all enemies. He will then follow that up with a basic on the Vulnerable enemy and thus cause even more damage. Luke Cage takes the next turn and your five have all done their jobs, if indeed you setup this first round of turns well.
So with this, assuming we now have Luke Cage as a Fortifier and Punisher as a Striker, how do we use Iso-8 on the other three? First, Daredevil needs to be applying Vulnerable to enemies to be used correctly in my opinion, and after testing him as a Raider I feel like the Skirmisher class is a far better fit. But looking at Iron Fist, given he is slightly faster than JJ (106 speed versus JJ’s 100), I am finding that he and JJ are a bit interchangeable if we are looking to use the Healer class on one. The one item that has changed my mind on how to best use these two is this – Iron Fist has two attack abilities, and JJ has just one. Since you cannot add Vulnerable on the non-attack abilities of these characters, I like the math of two being greater than one, placing the Healer class on Jessica Jones over the more obvious assumption in Iron Fist.
So what do we do with Iron Fist? This is where you come down to personal preference. He has no Critical Chance boost in his kit, so as a level 1 Raider he is still at only 25% CC. If you’re dead-set on having all five classes represented, the Raider class is really your only option if you use the setup above. However, thinking outside the box a bit, the Skirmisher class is going to more reliably land Vulnerable, so having a second Skirmisher is not a bad option.
Punfenders Iso-8 Class Recommendations:
- Turn 1 – Daredevil – Skirmisher (Raider is an option)
- Turn 2 – Iron Fist – Skirmisher/Raider (based on your preference)
- Turn 3 – Jessica Jones – Healer
- Turn 4 – Punisher – Striker
- Turn 5 – Luke Cage – Fortifier
By LJ
Director of Content, Gaming-fans.com
