Summoners!

More than just Blade’s backpack, Ghost-Rider is one of the ultimate Swiss Army Knife characters in Marvel Contest of Champions. Bleed Immunity, Regeneration, Buff Preventation, Power Drain and more – Ghost-Rider has a little bit of everything. Once you understand how to properly utilize his Judgements, he becomes a huge asset to a questing or AQ team.

View Champion on Auntm.ai

Key Information:
What makes Ghost-Rider unique in MCOC are his Judgements. They are placed by performing different actions and each Judgement has a different secondary effect. Furthermore, each active Judgement increases the duration of the secondary effect of the next Judgement by 75%, meaning you can build Ghost-Rider up to make whatever secondary effect you need most in the fight more powerful.

Judgements can be placed by:
– Ending a 5-hit combo with a light attack (places bleed debuff)
– Ending a 5-hit combo with a medium attack (attack increase, requires Signature Ability)
– Heavy Attack (activates life-steal)
– Throwing a Special Attack (see below)

Each Judgement can only be placed once. If you want to reset the Judgements to restart the cycle, you need to throw an SP3.

Ghost-Rider has an additional 20% chance to place a Judgement when facing a villain, and his armor rating and critical rating are also increased.

Ghost-Rider is a bleed-immune champion. He is not incinerate-immune, despite visually being on fire. While much has been made of this, the real answer as to why he is not incinerate-immune is that at the time Ghost-Rider entered the Contest, that immunity did not exist.

Signature Ability:
Ghost-Rider’s Signature Ability adds another Judgement to his arsenal. This ability falls in the “Nice to have, but not necessary” category, so don’t feel pressured to awaken Ghost-Rider or to dump Signature Stones into him.

Team Building/Key Synergies:
Ghost-Rider is widely known as one of the key synergy pieces of the Blade Trinity, but he has numerous other synergies beyond granting Blade Danger Sense versus villains. The Blade synergy is also quite important to Ghost-Rider, as it gives his Judgements +50% ability accuracy, and you don’t want those to fail. Man-Thing also will increase Judgement accuracy by 25% for each Judgement on the defender. With the Darkhawk “Dark Judgement” synergy, Ghost-Rider gains 30% power rate vs villains and 10% Critical Rate vs Heroes. With Night Thrasher, Bleed, Damnation and Fate Seal effects are extended by 40%. Mephisto grants Ghost-Rider +10% attack.

If you are playing Ghost-Rider as your main attacker, I would suggest Blade, Darkhawk, Night Thrasher and Mephisto, which would give you a very well-rounded quest team.

Mastery Setup:
Ghost-Rider is a good candidate for the suicide masteries because he is bleed-immune and has an on-demand healing mechanic.

Alliance War Defense:
Ghost-Rider is a diversity defender for Alliance War. Given his value as an AQ workhorse as well as the synergy he has with Blade, he is rarely placed on defense.

Special Attacks:
The SP1 has the Judgement of Pride (70% chance to trigger) which will nullify all buffs on the opponent and prevent any new buffs from activating for 5 seconds.

The SP2 has the Judgement of Anger (80% chance to trigger) which drains 18% of the opponent’s max power over 2 seconds.

The SP3 has the Judgement of Guilt (100% chance to trigger) and inflicts Damnation, which in addition to the direct damage applied, power locks, heal blocks, fate seals the opponent, and prevents new buffs from activating. Once Damnation ends, all Judgments are removed and reset, so you can begin to apply them again.

Pros:
One of the best attributes of Ghost-Rider is his extremely reliable regeneration, which has made him an Alliance Quest workhorse, particular on Map 5 and below, for years.

There are many tools in his kit that are basically on-demand to the Summoner.

Although he has many synergies other than the Blade one, none are absolutely necessary to effectively play the champion.

Great vs Cosmic champions where you want to nullify buffs.

Bleed-immunity is valuable when playing the Blade Trinity.

Cons:
Not a high-end damage-dealer. Best for short fights or match-ups where his utility shines.

Can only trigger each ability once before needing to reset with the SP3.

Does require a bit of learning on the player’s part to maximize, but afterwards is a very solid addition to a mid-tier player’s roster.

Loses some effectiveness in debuff- and stun-immune match-ups.

Since Ghost-Rider doesn’t have overpowering abilities, he is rarely the absolute best option for any match-up. However, he’s usually a solid back-up, especially on a quest team.

Pro Tips:
Going into each fight, you should have a game-plan for the order you want to deal out Ghost-Rider’s Judgements. Think about the one or two Judgements that will be most important in the fight, and when in the fight you will need to throw them.

Even if the opponent is bleed-immune, remember to end a combo with a light attack to place the Judgement and help the ramp-up of the other Judgements. This is a great way to end your first combo of the fight.

Because Ghost-Rider doesn’t hit very hard, he is great for Rage nodes. If you do start to build up Fury Buffs on the opponent, use the SP1 to nullify them. This tactic can also be used for Explosive Personality Armor Buffs.

Recommended Videos:

Katy Candy – Ghost-Rider 6 Minutes or Less

Seatin – Ghost-Rider Overview and Tips

DarkZodiac – How To Use Ghost-Rider

Professor Skill – How To Use Ghost-Rider

MCOC Doc – How To Use Ghost-Rider

-Dano357