Next week in Marvel Contest of Champions sees the conclusion of both the Gifting Event and Alliance War Season 14, along with the release of Week 4 of The Halls of Heroes.
We are currently in the rewards lockout period for Alliance War Season 14. If you are planning on leaving your current alliance, wait until after rewards for both Gifting and Season 14 are in your in-game mailbox. Rewards for both events are expected to drop on January 1.
Full Roster Availability (No AW/AQ): 100% champion availability on Tuesday, December 31 starting around 2pm until AW attack resumes around 2pm on January 2.
Sunday, December 29: Dungeons reset at 1pm EST (Mutant/Mystic).
Monday, December 30: Round 2 of the 4* Green Goblin Arena, and the only Round of the 2017 Featured Arenas at 1pm EST. Summoner Sigil Owners, your Solo Event and Gold Quest reset at 1pm EST. Final War Attack of Season 14 begins at 2pm EST. The AQ Series ends at 3PM EST. UMCOC Podcast, Live On Discord, 8pm EST.
Tuesday, December 31: 100% champion availability following the conclusion of AW attack (final war of Season 14) around 2pm EST. Aarkus (Vision) enters the Basic Pool. The Halls of Heroes Week 4 opens at 1pm EST.
Wednesday, January 1: 100% champion availability all day! Dungeons reset at 1pm EST (Tech/Science). Rewards for both Gifting and AW Season 14 are expected to drop today.
Thursday, January 2: 100% champion availability until AW attack resumes at 2pm EST. Round 1 of the 4* Stealth Spider-Man and 2018 Crystal Featured Arenas begin at 1pm EST. The AQ Series begins at 3pm. The Alpha Arena begins at 6pm EST.
Friday, January 3: No Schedule Notes.
Saturday, January 4: Dungeons reset for the final time at 1pm EST (Skill/Cosmic).
If you plan on clearing some difficult content in Marvel Contest of Champions this January (Abyss of Legends anyone?), you’ll need to know when all your champs will be available. Here is the full schedule of 100% roster availability (no AQ/AW) for the month. All times are EST, 2pm is based off of the approximate end of AW attack.
Tuesday, December 31 at 2pm – Thursday, January 2 at 2pm
Tuesday, January 7 at 3pm – Thursday, January 9 at 2pm
Wednesday, January 15 at 3pm – Thursday, January 16 at 2pm
Friday, January 17 at 2pm – Saturday, January 18 at 2pm
Friday, January 24 at 2pm – Saturday, January 25 at 2pm
Friday, January 31 at 3pm – Saturday, February 1 at 2pm
Here’s my guide for Back Issues (Variant) 4 – Waning Moon – Chapter 1.2.
General Thoughts: The paths themselves are pretty straightforward, there is nothing really tricky to deal with. Paths 1 or 3 could be considered easy options for an initial clear. The X-Force Deadpool boss, on the other hand, is one of the most talked about fights in Variant 4. I’m not a huge fan of this fight design (it’s just one too many nodes), but there are solutions to keep you from wrecking your item stash, which I cover below. Outside of the boss fight, this is a pretty quick and fun chapter.
Restrictions: 5* Champions Only
MVP Champs: Hyperion, Blade, Corvus Glaive
Global Node: +400% Attack and Health Boost
Boss: X-Force Deadpool with +100% Health, Fundamentals (-100% chance to use specials, with less than a bar of power reduces all damage by 95%, with 1 bar gains +2100 block penetration, with 2 bars all attacks are unblockable, with 3 bars all attacks are unblockable and charging a heavy attack deals 50% of the defenders attack as direct damage), Aggression, Mighty Charge 2, Limber, Duodeum Prod, Rainbow of Power (Double Power Gain), Enhanced Bleed, Counterstrike, Force of Will.
So this X-Force Deadpool has a lot of nodes on him, and it’s a really, really annoying fight. Yes, there is a “cheese” method where you can get him into the corner at the start of the fight and spam heavy attacks, but he’s got to play the right way at the beginning of the fight (not dash back) or you won’t be able to set this up. Personally I find it difficult to string together multiple heavies in a row.
Now there are other options. If you can play touch-less Quake, that works. Stark Spider-Man can draw out some specials with taunts, so you can do some damage that way, but getting a solo will take a lot of skill.
But the option that worked the best for me was Hyperion. You can start the fight normally with him. By the end of your third parry and 5 combo you should be able get off a SP2. Hopefully you get the stun and can go back in. Afterwards, back up to the far left corner against the wall. When Deadpool dashes in, counter with a light combo, and because it’s Hyperion, you can usually end with a special (hopefully a SP2 that gets the stun) and repeat this. This counter-against-the-wall trick should work with anyone, but Hyperion’s increased power gain and stun means you can get a lot more damage out of each counter attack.
Lane 1 – Far Left
Defenders: Domino, Red Skull, Hela, Thor Ragnarok, King Groot
Nodes: Feats of Power, Enhanced Fury, Enhanced Critical Buffs
Team: Blade, Ghost-Rider, Stark Spider-Man, Sentinel, Hyperion
Tips: Easy path, basically just run-of-the-mill fights with big health pools. Make sure you have a Domino counter.
Lane 2 – Middle Left
Defenders: Doctor Strange, Havok, Symbiote Supreme, Mephisto, Aarkus
Nodes: Aspect of Evolution, Improved Power Gain
Team: Blade, Mephisto, Stark Spider-Man, Venom, Hyperion
Tips: While the nodes aren’t too bad here, you’ve got increased power gain to deal with, combined with a few champs you don’t generally want to get to two bars of power. You’ve also got three champions in Havok (Armor Up), Mephisto (Incinerate Immune/Blade), and Aarkus (Coldsnap Immune) that you’re going to need to bring counters for, so make sure you’re covering your bases when you select your team.
Lane 3 – Middle Right
Defenders: Ronin, Cull Obsidian, Sentinel, Taskmaster, The Hood
Nodes: Mighty Charge, Aggressive
Team: Sentinel, Stark Spider-Man, Hyperion, Ghost-Rider, Blade
Tips: Great path for a duped Blade, as you can heal the chip damage. Since all of the defenders except for Taskmaster have an easy SP1 to bait and punish, as long as you can get into the start of the fight you’re set.
Tips: This is an awesome path to run a duped Corvus Glaive at 1% health. Just don’t parry/block at all, and keep hitting into the opponent’s block. Punish a few specials and you’re set. Even if you mess up and have to block, the reflection damage can’t kill you if your Glaive Charges are active. Killmonger is the one to be careful with. If he throws a SP1 he will be able to counter-punch when you hit into his block, so watch out there (he got me with that).
If you don’t have a Corvus, I recommend using another heavy hitter that can crit through blocks, someone that reduces block proficiency (like Sunspot), or a champion like Void, who does not need to hit the opponent to do damage.
Annihilus obviously needs a direct counter, so make sure you have a strong option there. If you get the early intercept of Annihilus (when the destructive feedback is up), make sure you wait until after it expires to push him above a bar of power. You don’t want to lose that stored up damage if this is a tricky fight for you.
An original member of the New Mutants, Brazilian-born Roberto “Bobby” Da Costa absorbs solar radiation, granting him super-strength (but not invulnerability, as he was contractually obligated to remind his best friend Cannonball at the beginning of every issue of New Mutants Volume 1) and eventually, he learned to channel this energy into fiery outbursts.
Key Information: Sunspot’s power set in MCOC is a enjoyable adaptation of his comic book powers. Like in the comics, Sunspot can run out of stored solar energy (in MCOC Solar Charges) and becomes significantly less powerful. In MCOC, maximizing Sunspot’s big damage potential is all about utilizing his Solar Charges correctly.
An unawakened Sunspot begins the fight with 80 Solar Charges (a max Sig 5* starts at 120). These Solar Charges will be begin to decrease at the rate of 1 every 3 seconds, and are transferred to the defender when landing a hit, placing an Incinerate Debuff.
Sunspot can regain Solar Charges by being inflicted with an Incinerate Debuff (+5 Solar Charges), or by purifying Incinerate Debuffs on his opponent. He can do this by charging his heavy attack and absorbing Incineration Debuffs off his opponent, or by performing a perfect block. If an incinerate fails to apply on the opponent, or the opponent purifies the incineration debuff, Sunspot gains 10% of a bar of power and 1 Solar Charge.
Incinerate Debuffs have the additional benefits of removing the ability of the opponent to perform a perfect block, and reducing their block proficiency by 50%.
When Sunspot has Solar Charges, he is in his Flare State. Flare State can stack up to 10 times, and for each stack of Flare State, Sunspot expends 1 Solar Charge per hit landed on the opponent, dealing energy damage.
Signature Ability: Sunspot’s Signature ability grants him extra Solar Charges, up to a maximum of 40 at Level 200. This ability is not required to play him, but it does extend his time in Flare State which is very helpful in longer fights. Sunspot is currently the #3 Prestige 5* Mutant Champion, and is the #1 Prestige 6* Mutant. His synergies also scale with his Signature Level. He is worth a Mutant Awakening Gem and Mutant Signature Stones if you are taking the champion to 5/65.
Team Building/Key Synergies: No backpacks required here! One of Sunspot’s greatest strengths is that he requires no synergies to deliver big damage. Warlock and Cable will increase the special attack ability accuracy of Mutants, and Mephisto and Hela grant additional critical rating, but these are nice extras.
Mastery Setup: Sunspot is not bleed- or poison-immune, so he’s not the greatest champion to run with suicides, but since his SP2 delivers such big damage, you can usually avoid recoil damage.
Alliance War Defense: Sunspot is a diversity defender for Alliance War Defense.
Special Attacks: The SP1 places Incinerate Debuffs that last an additional 9 seconds, and add a stack of Flare State. The SP1 is usually best used early in a fight to help build up Sunspot. As adding Flare States will cause you to go through your Solar Charges faster, you do want to be careful with how often you use the SP1.
The SP2 is where the Big Yellow Numbers come into play. For each stack of Flare State, Sunspot will add a Prowess effect increasing the damage of the SP2 by 200%. The final hit uses 15 Solar Charges, so you’ll leave the opponent with a huge number of Incineration Debuffs if they manage to survive.
The SP3 is used to restore Sunspot to his maximum number of Solar Charges, so if you run out, you need to build up to the SP3 to get your big damage back. For every 20 charges returned, Sunspot also inflicts the opponent with an Incinerate Debuff that lasts 12 seconds.
Pros: If you like short fights and big burst-damage, Sunspot delivers.
High Perfect Block chance (including against Special Attacks) allows Sunspot to mitigate chip-damage from blocked hits.
Not many champions in the game are immune to Incinerate Debuffs.
Excellent prestige.
Highly useful on questing teams, AQ, AW and end-game content.
Can handle Map 7 paths such as Freezerburn, Diss Track, and Pleasure to Burn.
Does not need to be awakened to deliver big damage, and does not require a synergy team either.
Cons:
There are better options for the longest fights in the game, such as Labyrinth of Legends.
While the Perfect Block chance is a wonderful bonus, Sunspot has no way to heal, so you can’t get hit.
Shock damage will shut down his Flare State.
Relies on his heavy attack to recover Solar Charges, so Stun- and Debuff-Immune matchups are problematic.
Matchups against champions that can use energy damage against you, like Bishop, Captain Marvel Movie, and Human Torch are problematic. Mephisto is another one to be careful with, because you’ll be constantly feeding him free power gain.
Pro Tips: Your rotation is going to vary depending on the power level of your Sunspot, signature level, and the health pool of the opponent. If you’re in a shorter fight, you can just rush straight to the SP2 for the kill-shot.
For medium length fights, you want to weave in heavy attacks. So for example you can 5-combo, parry, heavy, 5-combo SP1. Then alternate a 5-combo and parry/heavy until you’re at the SP2, and that should finish them off.
It’s appealing to throw multiple SP1 attacks, but remember you’re going to start to burn through Solar Charges very quickly, and if the SP2 doesn’t end the fight, you are likely going to be out of, or very low on Solar Charges.
If the opponent survives your SP2, immediately parry and charge your heavy to regain as many Solar Charges as possible.
While Sunspot can do major energy damage to a Korg, you’re going to be constantly adding to Korg’s Rock Shield as he shrugs the Incinerate Debuffs. If you going to go this route, make sure you’re adept at the light-intercept method, as his Rock Shield will be up the entire fight.
Frontline: MCOC 