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  • WhiteBomber
    WhiteBomber Posts: 868 Critical Contributor
    edited November 2025

    @LavaManLee I added this team and starter info to page 1. All 3 of those characters (already noted in your other thread, I know) can individually shut down that team. I am still looking at some other random / fun and less reliable counters to Frankie, but 2 of the 3 below most everyone should have:

    Frankie5, iHulk5

    • Hawkeye1 w/ starting pink AP support, ANY high level partner (infinite). Recommended: High match damage or cheap nuke: MBaku4, Onslaught5, ShangChi5, Yelena1, Moonstone2 etc.
    • Moonstone4 w/ any starting AP, any teammate that can start with yellow AP support, EX: Peni Parker, Vintage Shield (infinite). Recommended: High match damage or black nukes: Namor3, Yelena1, Electro5 etc. If Moonstone or Darkveil are ascended, consider Darkveil w/ Krakoa to guarantee yellow.
    • Multiman4 w/ Cuckoos, any other characters w/ starting AP supports. Recommended: Coulson, any strong Mutant w/ Krakoa.

    Hope this helps!

  • WhiteBomber
    WhiteBomber Posts: 868 Critical Contributor
    edited November 2025

    It's worth noting, if you're willing to risk the starting yellow w/ Moonstone4 (over Hawks easier pink), she buffs Yelena's black, which at level 500 (currently boosted) does over 150k for 6AP. If your starting AP doesn't fire, it's more efficient to just quit out immediately :lol: So you're only limited to needing health packs by as many quits as their health can afford.

    Hawkeye with both other characters and starting pink, are basically 99% to win. Same with Multiman, but probably slower. If you swap in another mutant with MM, it becomes basically 100% if your other mutant is decent, but probably the slowest option.

  • Grantosium
    Grantosium Posts: 172 Tile Toppler

    Think I've said this once or twice somewhere but Onslaught is one of my preferred options to pair with MM or Hawkeye.

    • Mutant
    • Villain (relevant if Daredevil is also in MM team)
    • Purple is strongest colour
    • Passive board shake ability that annihilates TU tiles
  • captainheath
    captainheath Posts: 278 Mover and Shaker

    @Grantosium said:
    Think I've said this once or twice somewhere but Onslaught is one of my preferred options to pair with MM or Hawkeye.

    • Mutant
    • Villain (relevant if Daredevil is also in MM team)
    • Purple is strongest colour
    • Passive board shake ability that annihilates TU tiles

    In my opinion, Onslaught is one of the most overlooked toons on these boards.

  • WhiteBomber
    WhiteBomber Posts: 868 Critical Contributor

    @captainheath said:

    @Grantosium said:
    Think I've said this once or twice somewhere but Onslaught is one of my preferred options to pair with MM or Hawkeye.

    • Mutant
    • Villain (relevant if Daredevil is also in MM team)
    • Purple is strongest colour
    • Passive board shake ability that annihilates TU tiles

    In my opinion, Onslaught is one of the most overlooked toons on these boards.

    He is definitely one of Hawks most reliable teammates thanks to Krakoa... forgot to add him, adding now.

  • WhiteBomber
    WhiteBomber Posts: 868 Critical Contributor
    edited November 2025

    There are multiple teams now that can kill everything pretty easily, so I am just having fun looking for other (weirder?) options now.

    Added to Page 1
    For Frankie5, MThor5, Ironmay3:

    You can swap out Kingpin, but he is a pretty safe bet, and you want a rainbow since Sunny generates all colors. It's definitely not the safest of all, but pretty fun synergy. Also seemed to work on Frankie, iHulk?

  • Blackstone
    Blackstone Posts: 921 Critical Contributor
    edited 16 February 2026, 13:29

    Concerning losing steam on convincing people of things...

    People get set in their ways. Beyond that, your guide is fantastic but attention to the details you offer have had to compete with the menagerie of problems that exploded and only got worse for an extended period of time.

    If the work isn't fulfilling, by all means step away from it. I'm only leaving this comment to say that I don't believe there is any fault in the work you've done. I think it's a wonderful resource more people should use and engage with.

    As things continue to improve I hope new players find this guide, use it to their benefit, and inform you of how helpful it is to them.

    I've been playing forever and found new combinations here I might never have tried.

  • MegaBee
    MegaBee Posts: 1,377 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Blackstone said:
    Concerning losing steam on convincing people of things...

    People get set in their ways. Behind that, your guide is fantastic but attention to the details you offer have had to compete with the menagerie of problems that exploded and only got worse for an extended period of time.

    If the work isn't fulfilling, by all means step away from it. I'm only leaving this comment to say that I don't believe there is any fault in the work you've done. I think it's a wonderful resource more people should use and engage with.

    As things continue to improve I hope new players find this guide, use it to their benefit, and inform you of how helpful it is to them.

    I've been playing forever and found new combinations here I might never have tried.

    Seconding this.

  • Grantosium
    Grantosium Posts: 172 Tile Toppler

    Glad you're still around. One of the most interesting commenters on the forum.

  • WhiteBomber
    WhiteBomber Posts: 868 Critical Contributor
    edited 15 February 2026, 04:08

    I very much appreciate all the kind words.

    The work itself (or at least the in game work) is actually my favorite part. Labbing and challenging the mundane is what I love about this game. I initially started this thread (similarly to my MM guide) because so many people were mentioning problems with the meta, or "how can I beat these OP charscters?". Since finding more ways to do just that was what I enjoyed, it made sense (there's still quite a bit out there we are missing). Like, I knew Throg would be fun, but with the right people, he is amazing, and who doesn't want someone to come back to seeing there 550 metas beat by a 450 Throg team?

    What it really comes down to is the value, its hard to see the actual value in it for now, especially since all of those teams are very beatable.

    So Im really just posting lesser used (and not so necessary) character combinations, to help shed light on other strategies, but is it worth it?

    It also takes sooooo damn long to ascend. There are a billion more things I want to try, but 1 character every couple of months and even I am burning out a little trying to get them there, and that's with me already having a reasonably strong roster

    I'll likely still be playing for some time, but pick 3 is the only part left that's fun for me.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 8,276 Chairperson of the Boards

    I wish the game gave you some incentive to do stuff like this, or made it more worthwhile in some way.

    Reading your post I'm reminded of the old Heroic events, which were just regular PvE but roster-restricted to a random set of characters. They were really fun because you couldn't just stomp everything with the best guys, you had to find synergies between weird bad characters.

    Of course everybody hated them and whined about them constantly, because they just wanted to stomp everything with the best guys, so they'll probably never come back.

  • MegaBee
    MegaBee Posts: 1,377 Chairperson of the Boards

    @entrailbucket said:
    I wish the game gave you some incentive to do stuff like this, or made it more worthwhile in some way.

    Reading your post I'm reminded of the old Heroic events, which were just regular PvE but roster-restricted to a random set of characters. They were really fun because you couldn't just stomp everything with the best guys, you had to find synergies between weird bad characters.

    Of course everybody hated them and whined about them constantly, because they just wanted to stomp everything with the best guys, so they'll probably never come back.

    I miss the Heroics.

  • BriMan2222
    BriMan2222 Posts: 2,020 Chairperson of the Boards

    @entrailbucket said:
    I wish the game gave you some incentive to do stuff like this, or made it more worthwhile in some way.

    Reading your post I'm reminded of the old Heroic events, which were just regular PvE but roster-restricted to a random set of characters. They were really fun because you couldn't just stomp everything with the best guys, you had to find synergies between weird bad characters.

    Of course everybody hated them and whined about them constantly, because they just wanted to stomp everything with the best guys, so they'll probably never come back.

    I remember some people complaining that they just wanted to use their best guys, but I remember the biggest complaint being from newer players. If they didn't have the required characters, they were essentially locked out of playing the event at all.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 8,276 Chairperson of the Boards

    @BriMan2222 said:

    @entrailbucket said:
    I wish the game gave you some incentive to do stuff like this, or made it more worthwhile in some way.

    Reading your post I'm reminded of the old Heroic events, which were just regular PvE but roster-restricted to a random set of characters. They were really fun because you couldn't just stomp everything with the best guys, you had to find synergies between weird bad characters.

    Of course everybody hated them and whined about them constantly, because they just wanted to stomp everything with the best guys, so they'll probably never come back.

    I remember some people complaining that they just wanted to use their best guys, but I remember the biggest complaint being from newer players. If they didn't have the required characters, they were essentially locked out of playing the event at all.

    That was a problem too. I wonder if it'd be better or worse now. Since there are so many more characters, they could make the restricted pool a lot bigger and still lock out lots of characters.

  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 3,280 Chairperson of the Boards

    @BriMan2222 said:

    @entrailbucket said:
    I wish the game gave you some incentive to do stuff like this, or made it more worthwhile in some way.

    Reading your post I'm reminded of the old Heroic events, which were just regular PvE but roster-restricted to a random set of characters. They were really fun because you couldn't just stomp everything with the best guys, you had to find synergies between weird bad characters.

    Of course everybody hated them and whined about them constantly, because they just wanted to stomp everything with the best guys, so they'll probably never come back.

    I remember some people complaining that they just wanted to use their best guys, but I remember the biggest complaint being from newer players. If they didn't have the required characters, they were essentially locked out of playing the event at all.

    There were also fewer toys in general, with fewer synergies, no supports use, and no ascended characters. So, you might have had required characters, but nothing particularly powerful. Now, especially with as fast as you can cover new releases, all but the newest rosters should have a few viable options even with restrictions.

  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 12,288 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited 16 February 2026, 14:49

    I started playing when they were still running Heroic events and seem to remember one centered around Juggernaut?

    I guess the last time we had anything like that was when they did Boss Event featuring Dark Avengers only. I didn't at that time have any champed DA 5* but I remember quite liking it. Now I have all the 5s champed and ascended characters blah blah I suppose it wouldn't be quite as challenging.

  • Alfje17
    Alfje17 GLOBAL_MODERATORS Posts: 4,375 Chairperson of the Boards

    @DAZ0273 said:
    I started playing when they were still running Heroic events and seem to remember one centered around Juggernaut?

    There was a Juggernaut Heroic event in March 2017 and that might have been the very last one.

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 7,080 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Alfje17 said:

    @DAZ0273 said:
    I started playing when they were still running Heroic events and seem to remember one centered around Juggernaut?

    There was a Juggernaut Heroic event in March 2017 and that might have been the very last one.

    So it’s been 9 years in a 12 year old game since we had a Heroic PvE?

    Folks, I’m pretty sure they’re never coming back.

    It’s fun to reminisce though.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 8,276 Chairperson of the Boards

    @bluewolf said:

    @Alfje17 said:

    @DAZ0273 said:
    I started playing when they were still running Heroic events and seem to remember one centered around Juggernaut?

    There was a Juggernaut Heroic event in March 2017 and that might have been the very last one.

    So it’s been 9 years in a 12 year old game since we had a Heroic PvE?

    Folks, I’m pretty sure they’re never coming back.

    It’s fun to reminisce though.

    Obviously they'll never run that specific event again, because it probably doesn't even work anymore.

    I don't see why they couldn't bring back some sort of roster-restricted PvE event. They had the restricted boss events pretty recently.

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