Summoners!

Here’s my guide for Chapter 2.2 “Underground Blade” of Variant 5 “Blood & Venom.”

General Thoughts:

I thought this was the easiest quest in Variant 5 so far. I was able to clear every path without using any items, which is a big plus. There are some fun ways to play around with the nodes that I will get into in the individual path breakdowns.


Best Champs: Doctor Doom, Mephisto, Symbiote Supreme, Venom, Stark Spider-Man

Restrictions: Only Mystic, #Spider-Verse Heroes, and #Symbiote champions are eligible for Variant 5.

Global Nodes:
+400% Attack & Health Champion Boost
Special 3 Active
Arcane Torrent – For each buff on the defender, Mystic Attackers gain:
+25% Ability Accuracy
+10% Attack
+25% Bleed Debuff Duration
+25% Armor Break Debuff Duration
+10% Power Rate


Boss: Storm

Boss Notes:
+300% Health
Adaptive
Arc Overload 2.2
Aspect of Evolution
Burden of Might
Bleed Vulnerability

Storm is pretty tanky, and with Burden of Might you’re not going to be able to throw as many specials as usual. While it may take a while, it’s still just an OG Storm that you have to out-damage here. As long as you don’t get bored dodging her specials a million times you’re golden.

While I tried testing out some Bleed champs to take advantage of the node, I actually found Doctor Doom was getting me the fastest KOs. Mephisto also performed quite well in this fight. Claire Voyant does really well in this matchup, but I didn’t have her ranked-up.


Lane 1 – Left – Easy Path

Gate: None

Defenders: Mr. Fantastic, Tech Adaptoid, Ultron, Mystic Adaptoid, Rocket Raccoon, Magneto House of X, Tech Adaptoid

Nodes: Adaptive, Enhanced Abilities, Recharge (All Fights)

Team: Doctor Doom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Venom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 40), Stark Spider-Man (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Magik (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 40), Symbiote Supreme (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 60)

Tips: This is a really fun path, especially if you play into the Recharge Node. My favorite tactic was holding block to shoot up to a SP2 for Stark Spider-Man or SP3 for Symbiote Supreme for instant big damage.

The defenders on this path are fairly simple. Mr. Fantastic and Ultron have their usual evade to worry about, and you’ll likely want a non-metal champ for Magneto House of X (although Doom did do fine for me here). Other than that, these are very simple and rewarding fights!

Lane 2 – Left Center – Easy Path

Gate: None

Defenders: Rhino, Vulture, Skill Adaptoid, Magneto House of X, Tech Adaptoid,

Nodes: Aspect of Evolution, Bleed Vulnerability (Rhino), Adaptive, Enhanced Abilities, Recharge (Vulture-Tech Adaptoid)

Team: Doctor Doom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Venom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 40), Stark Spider-Man (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Mojo (5-Star Rank 4 Sig 20), Symbiote Supreme (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 60)

Tips: This is another Easy Path, and you can use your experience from the Left Path here, as other than Rhino, Recharge is active and there are several duplicate fights. For Rhino your best best is playing into the Bleed Vulnerability node with someone like Venom or Venom the Duck. Once again, not really much to plan for here and you can just enjoy smashing the opponents with lots of specials.

Lane 3 – Center

Gate: None

Defenders: Rhino, Civil Warrior, Nightcrawler, Phoenix, Angela

Nodes: Aspect of Evolution, Bleed Vulnerability (Entire Path)

Team: Doctor Doom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Venom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 40), Stark Spider-Man (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Mojo (5-Star Rank 4 Sig 20), Symbiote Supreme (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 60)

Tips: Honestly, if you’re comfortable with switching Nightcrawler, this is yet again another quick and easy path. I used Venom for the first two fights, and he just mows down Rhino and Civil Warrior. I then had Sparky to take down Nightcrawler, and brought in the Symbiote Supreme for a mystic bleeder vs Phoenix and Angela. These were all fast fights, it was great. If you don’t have Venom, try Venom the Duck, and Claire Voyant, Guillotine, and Longshot are also great options in place of Symbiote Supreme.

Lane 4 – Right Center – Hard

Gate: None

Defenders: Vision Age of Ultron, Squirrel Girl, Mr. Sinister, Ronin, Venom The Duck

Nodes: Arc Overload 2.2, Pessimist, Optimist (All Fights)

Team: Doctor Doom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Venom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 40), Stark Spider-Man (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Magik (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 40), Guillotine (5-Star Rank 4 Sig 120)

Tips: Calling this the “Hard Path” is all relative, but the rest of this quest is pretty easy and Mr. Sinister is clearly the toughest matchup you’ll face in 2.2.

This is a regen path with the Arc Overload, so you can either prevent the buff, reverse the healing, or simply out-damage it. For Vision I went the out-damage route, because Sparky’s SP2 does double damage vs Robots. Venom took out Squirrel Girl, Ronin, and Venom The Duck. I relied on his SP1 to eat the regen buff, which also had the nice benefit of healing Venom as well.

Mr. Sinister is tricky because he heals so much and there aren’t a ton of great heal-block or heal-reversal options available. This is further complicated by the fact that a lot of the champions deal debuffs they aren’t immune to, which further limits the pool, and takes Guillotine out of the running for heal-reversal.

What I ended up doing is going in with Magik, and alternating between SP2 (power control) and SP1 to nullify the Regen Buff, which was slow going but was working until I just messed up. I then finished the fight with Doom, being careful to place only Shock, not Incinerate, Debuffs.

I would like to see how a ranked-up Claire Voyant does on this fight, as she could be the best counter. I also think Sasquatch could be an interesting option for this path.

Lane 5 – Right

Gate: None

Defenders: Vision Age of Ultron, Red Guardian, Doctor Voodoo, Doctor Octopus, Ronan, Nick Fury, Hulk Ragnarok

Nodes: Arc Overload 2.2, Pessimist, Optimist (Vision Age of Ultron), Power Shield, Burden of Might, Power Efficiency (Red Guardian-Hulk Ragnarok)

Team: Doctor Doom (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Mephisto (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 200), Symbiote Supreme (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 60), Ghost Rider (5-Star Rank 5 Sig 20 ), Mojo (5-Star Rank 4 Sig 20)

Tips: The combination of Power Shield and Burden of Might creates an interesting interaction. You need to throw specials, but your power is constantly being drained. Doctor Doom is able to counter this decently well with his power steal and debuffs.

The best option I found, however, was Mephisto. Mephisto has a natural, passive power gain, which is triggered by his Aura of Incinerate. So I brought in my Rank 5 Mephisto along with Symbiote Supreme and Ghost-Rider for synergies (an argument could be made for bringing Morningstar as well), and I was off. Mephisto is fantastic for this chapter, especially if you can get to a SP3 at the start of the fight to trigger his permanent Aura. Then you are just gaining power the whole fight while throwing big specials and dealing Passive Incinerate damage. You may find yourself having to throw more SP1s than usual with Mephisto, but I think that is ok in this case.

The two fights to look out for on this path are Doctor Octopus, because of his natural power control, and Nick Fury, because you can’t bring a mutant in to suppress his tactical charges. This is where Mephisto really shined as I used his natural power gain to get up to 2 bars of power and then intercepted with a special attack.

If you don’t have Mephisto, Doctor Doom works quite well, and I think Dragon Man’s power gain might be handy, but I didn’t have one to test.

A note on Burden of Might. You’ll lose your power when a buff ends. Most often this occurs when you gain a Dexterity buff from dodging a special, and then you run in to punish with a regular attack. This can be very frustrating on Power Shield, since you need your Specials to do big damage. You can work around this by blocking specials instead of evading them, or by Parrying the opponent immediately after you dodge their special, and then launching your special attack instead of a normal combo.


Recommended Videos:

KT1 – Chapter 2 Guide

Kingslayer – Claire Voyant vs Storm

Jump To:
Variant 5 Chapter 1.1 Guide
Variant 5 Chapter 1.2 Guide
Variant 5 Chapter 2.1 Guide
Variant 5 Chapter 2.2 Guide
Variant 5 Chapter 3.1 Guide
Variant 5 Chapter 3.2 Guide

-Dano357