Gaming-fans.com is pleased to announce that LJ, the Director of Content for our site, is one of the select individuals testing out the new Iso-8 modifications for Marvel Strike Force. Announced earlier this week, around 100 players have been giving the developers feedback on the new Iso-8 feature, how it works, usability of the feature in the game, and more. For those interested in a YouTube video on this ValleyFlyin has released his look at Iso-8 as well as other popular YouTubers in the MSF community. We take a closer look at Iso-8 in Marvel Strike Force below.

Please note that any specifics mentioned below are subject to change.

Iso-8 is a character customization process where players can earn Iso-8 crystals and equip them to their heroes and villains. Each character has the ability to create a Matrix of 5 Iso-8 crystals, each from Level 1 through 5, enhancing a different stat in each of the 5 crystal locations. The five locations enhance the same stat for each character, but you first need to acquire the Iso-8 crystal for that slot and they character’s role in the game – Blaster, Brawler, Controller, Protector or Support. The five stats that can be enhanced by Iso-8 crystals are Resist, Health, Armor, Damage and Focus.

Now we get to the customization part. Once you equip the five Iso-8 crystals to your character, you can then select one of 5 Classes for them – Striker, Fortifier, Healer, Skirmisher or Raider. All 5 Classes enhance the character’s Max Health by the same amount, but that is where the similarities end. Here is a quick look at each of these Classes:

Striker – Offensive. This Class is based on enhancing damage and adds Marked to enemies which allows added damage to the Marked enemy. Striker Class characters can earn a bonus Iso attack on Marked enemies.

Fortifier – Defensive. The Fortifier Class adds barrier to the character and continues to reinforce that barrier on each turn (when leveled up). Fortifiers only impact themselves and not their teammates in any way.

Healer – Defensive. The Healer Class is similar to the Fortifier in the fact that they boost their own survivability, but Healers also have a healing impact on their teammates and can clear Marked.

Skirmisher – Support. The Skirmisher Class assists the Strikers in applying Marked (added damage) to their target, and once they are leveled up, can remove and even flip positive effects on Marked enemies.

Raider – Offensive. The Raider Class is where critical hits start coming into play. With MSF characters having low (around 10%) Critical Chance, we also see very few who have CC or Critical Damage boosts. The Raider Class is where they will fit the best as CC is boosted three times in the five levels of upgrades for Iso-8 and CD can be enhanced twice.

Your Class can be Level 1 through 5, but in order to upgrade the Class to a higher level, all Iso-8 crystals equipped will have to be at or above that level themselves.

Overall, the Iso-8 process is, in my opinion, very well thought out and allows both subtle customization of characters as well as the more obvious stat enhancements from the specific Classes. The character Classes take a little getting used to, but overall I like the way we can enhance the characters as we like without it being the Wild, Wild West like in other games with modifications. This allows for Marvel Strike Force to keep things a bit easier to understand while also allowing their players the freedom to customize their rosters as they see fit. In addition, there is no need for the “mod swapping” that turns into a massive time sink and causes confusion in SWGoH. Once the Iso-8 crystal is equipped, there does not appear to be a way to unequip it, thus there is no moving these enhancements around for different game modes or specific battles.

All in all, I look forward to Iso-8 coming to Marvel Strike Force and feel that it will be a strong addition to the game. We here at Gaming-fans.com will be preparing our Best Iso-8 pages for each character in Marvel Strike Force (which are underway using speculation as to how this will work BEFORE the playtest began), so once these character modifications are live in-game look to Gaming Fans for guidance on how to best enhance your roster.